Dream pop can sometimes feel detached and low-stakes, but not in the hands of Annie Hsmilton. The Sydney solo artist applies an urgent kick of immediacy to shoegaze-style layering, stacking heady textures so impactfully that everything she sings about begins to feel like sensory immersion. That’s echoed in the lyrical themes across her debut album, which equates lightning strikes and natural disasters to the inner strife of heartbreak and romantic betrayal.
Such urgency can be credited in part to Hamilton scrapping all of her works-in-progress when the pandemic hit and starting anew from that dramatic turning point. Coming off the back of Australia’s cataclysmic bushfires in early 2020, which directly inspired ‘All the Doors Inside My Home Are Slamming Into One Another’, Hamilton captures that time period’s overpowering anxiety, which hasn’t completely abated years on.
Co-producing with Pete Covington (Thelma Plum) and Methyl Ethel’s Jake Webb, with the latter co-writing and arranging several songs, Hamilton also tapped members of DMA’s, The Preatures and I Know Leopard to accompany her on the record. Rather than steal attention away from Hamilton, those assorted contributions feed into the soupy air of uneasiness introduced on opener ‘Providence Portal’. Featuring the album’s title phrase, which references people’s return to childlike comforts during lockdown, the song showcases a world-weary ache to Hamilton’s singing while the accumulation of sloshing textures evokes The National as well as Sharon Van Etten’s latest material.
Dream pop can sometimes feel detached and low-stakes, but not in the hands of Annie Hsmilton. The Sydney solo artist applies an urgent kick of immediacy to shoegaze-style layering, stacking heady textures so impactfully that everything she sings about begins to feel like sensory immersion. That’s echoed in the lyrical themes across her debut album, which equates lightning strikes and natural disasters to the inner strife of heartbreak and romantic betrayal.
Such urgency can be credited in part to Hamilton scrapping all of her works-in-progress when the pandemic hit and starting anew from that dramatic turning point. Coming off the back of Australia’s cataclysmic bushfires in early 2020, which directly inspired ‘All the Doors Inside My Home Are Slamming Into One Another’, Hamilton captures that time period’s overpowering anxiety, which hasn’t completely abated years on.
Co-producing with Pete Covington (Thelma Plum) and Methyl Ethel’s Jake Webb, with the latter co-writing and arranging several songs, Hamilton also tapped members of DMA’s, The Preatures and I Know Leopard to accompany her on the record. Rather than steal attention away from Hamilton, those assorted contributions feed into the soupy air of uneasiness introduced on opener ‘Providence Portal’. Featuring the album’s title phrase, which references people’s return to childlike comforts during lockdown, the song showcases a world-weary ache to Hamilton’s singing while the accumulation of sloshing textures evokes The National as well as Sharon Van Etten’s latest material.