I would guess that Annie Hart is familiar to most casual listeners from her role as keyboardist in Au Revoir Simone—a band that film people may also know from a Twin Peaks cameo, or an offhand comment in the equally Lynchain Pee-wee’s Big Adventure—but if you’re an ambient die hard (seems oxymoronic?) you may already be clued into her solo work under her own name. Her soothing debut full-length of minimalist synth tracks reaching up to 12 minutes arrives this Friday via Owen Ashworth’s Orindal Records—but today you can listen to the project in full.
In contrast to the dream pop of the band she came up in, Hart’s solo music borders on new-age-y, offering the songwriter an outlet for a personal meditation on the role of music in her life—not to mention plenty of space for the listener to engage in their own meditative states. “I think a lot about how and why I spend time making music,” she shares. “Sometimes even when I’m in the midst of a performance or composition and it can be so distracting that I mess up! I figured if I had a clear purpose, then I could melt the doubts that the path that calls to me is self-serving. I know I want to effect positive change, allow people to be themselves and care for others and expand their emotive capacity, but I’m working in a little niche.
“I don’t have a huge audience of millions that I can call out to be peaceful, honest and loving to the earth, and even if they did, what would be the tangible influence?” she continues. “So instead I drilled down to a smaller scope, since if I wanted to make good things happen, I had to start somewhere, right? I thought I could reach a smaller group but impact them with a deeper intensity by creating an incredibly peaceful environment that calls to them to be in the present and pay attention without using any words. So I wrote, and I listened, and I kept doing the things that made sounds that made me take a step deeper into the music.
“A friend of mine I sent the album to said that ‘it took over the room and made everything else recede, it has a physical presence that’s like light coming in or a plant growing,’ which I took as one of the best compliments I could have gotten. I hope that feeling happens to whomever listens to this work.”
Hear the album below, and pre-order it here.
