Annie Hart is an NYC-based composer and songwriter. She rose to acclaim as a part of synth trio Au Revoir Simone, but has since generated a solo career. Hart released her debut album, Impossible Accomplice, in 2017. She then landed a couple composition gigs, and has scored for two feature films set for release in 2020. On top that, she’s now announcing her next album, A Softer Offering. It’s due in December, but today she’s sharing “Wilderness Hill,” the first single from that upcoming album, along with another self-directed video.

The track is minimal in instrumentation, and uses a singular chord progression throughout, creating a sedated entry point for Hart’s dainty, hushed vocal stacks. They nearly drown in filter and reverb, but that effect flattens and chills any longing or dimensionality as she ponders: “No one waits for me there/ So I wander around when I’m walking around Wilderness Hill/ Are you awake before dawn?/I’m thinking of you still.”

Here’s what Hart had to say about “Wilderness Hill” and its video via press release:

I wrote the song when I was doing Stephen Bass’ PRAH Foundation in Margate last January. I was staying alone in a great big Victorian row house, recording alone in a studio, and spending my breaks wandering about going from the studio up to Cliff’s for a coffee or Peter’s near the sea for fish and chips. Everything was grey and filled with that particular brand of English winter cold, the damp chill that really sinks into your bones. I wrote the bass guitar and piano in the day, and on my afternoon walk to think of lyrics, I noticed the street sign for Wilderness Hill and was overcome with this feeling of solitude and missing love across the Atlantic. That’s how I started thinking of the story behind the song that I echoed in the video. It’s about being in one place in one time zone and not being able to communicate with someone in another one far away. The thoughts of them, and the geographical or emotional distance that lies between you, rattle around inside you like an unshakable thirst.

Watch the video for “Wilderness Hill” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Wilderness Hill”
02 “Longing To Care Less”
03 “Wandering Free”
04 “Don’t Breathe For Me”
05 “Stillness”
06 “Clean Floors”
07 “Phoenicia No Coffee”
08 “Embrace The New Age”
09 “The Paper Pull”

A Softer Offering is out 12/13. Pre-order it here. Also on 12/13, Hart plays Union Pool in Brooklyn; tickets are available here.

CREDIT: Sebastian Kim