Earlier this year, Samuel T. Herring celebrated a decade since his infamous Future Islands performance on Letterman and told us all about it. Now, the indie-rock frontman is switching gears; his rap side project, Hemlock Ernst, has announced a new album, Studying Absence, produced by Icky Reels.

The lead single “Raised In The South” is out now. Herring and Icky Reels connected through rapper Beans, who runs Tygr Rawwk Rcrds. “With Hemlock Ernst, I tend to work over soul and jazz break type beats. Icky Reels’ production was a far more industrial and acidic landscape. I knew this would be more of a cerebral process, breaking down the beats, challenging the rhythms, finding the voices. But I decided to accept the challenge,” Herring explained.

“Studying Absence is about my lost histories, my Southern South Pacific ancestry, my first relationships, physical abuse, drug addiction and the ghosts of the south — the roadkill on a long winter night,” he continued about the LP. “I was all these things but not one of them. The stories I don’t know, I can only imagine, but the same can be said for the stories that I know too well. The stories that I lived and made me who I am are now so far away that remembering them is like a dream. Did it happen? But I feel now like I felt then, like I’ve always felt looking into a mirror. This is potential and what was lost. This is technology and how it failed. This is imperialism and who it gained. A religion, an organized crime. All the people scattered.”

Check out “Raised In The South” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Raised In The South”
02 “Break Time In The Factory”
03 “Exhuming The King”
04 “Hold The Wires On Ellis”
05 “Old Dead Dogs”
06 “Persimmons”
07 “Remains Of A Memory”
08 “Testify”

Studying Absence is out 10/16 on Tygr Rawwk Rcrds.