“… with all my faiths and fears – in humanity, the power of presence, performance, the dark, death, Nina Simone, friendship, lonelier lonelier songs forever. But it’s a no pressure thing. Just keep it up out there. It’s always worth it.”
Hannah Read closes her recent tumblr post, describing the night she snuck into a recital hall in Waco, Texas to record 4E*. The album is a solo take on her band’s 2015 release, Forever. And far more; in this constraint the stories breath differently, Read’s delivery is nuanced and timeless (a quality Gold Flake Paint paints so well in their preface, and others have rightly praised).
She sings of a universal Americana. Hills that roll ‘forever on’, wildfires in fields, the stars at night, ‘dreaming of driving way up north’ (“Brazos River”, “Columbia River”), waiting for the sun on “Late Dawn”—holding that last refrain just long enough to see it break the treeline. The imagery has purpose, a guiding light to existential reflection: love, loneliness, and home.
4E* is available at bandcamp and through Austin-based non-profit, Punctum Records.