Living Room Sessions: Hshsh (The May Project and Vanguard One)

20 FEB 2020

The fourth in a back-catalogue series exploring past May Project tracks, presented as a lo-fi ‘living room’ video and accompanying blog post and playlist.

LIVING ROOM SESSION #4.

Track: Hshsh (The May Project and Vanguard One)

Year of release: February 2014

It’s been exactly 6 years today since both The May Project and its fashion label counterpart, Etta Every, were launched, and what better way to celebrate than a living room session for the very first May Project track! Hshsh was a collaboration between Ben Bartlett of Vanguard One and The May Project: Ben composed and performed all of the instrumentation, emailed it to me, and I composed the vocals, which were then recorded by Ben King, who mixed and mastered the final track with his special touch! In a fitting follow-up to this collaboration, Ben Bartlett went on to produce and mix the first full length May Project album, Elpis, in 2018 (listen here).

Hshsh’s premiere was in an industrial-style warehouse space, and it echoed plaintively and hauntingly through it as the soundtrack to models walking for Etta Every’s first fashion show at the label launch. The Etta Every collection, called ‘Storm in the Morning Light’ (named after a line in Portishead’s ‘Roads’), consisted of monochromatic layers tempered with aubergine and sage green: the bruising and fragility of a body hurt, needing to be wrapped in soft, protective layers, until ready to re-emerge with a new strength and new fight - black, boxing wraps, nickel hook-and-eye tape - the vertebrae of the spine. Essentially, that’s what the song is about: the heartache of heartbreak and the need to heal to be able to move on. What I like most about it is the grittiness Ben brought to it with his synth work and the backbone of the beat: despite the weight of the song, he still managed to imbue it with a kind of wistfulness and hope. To complement this, I was then free to do what I love best: layering up ethereal vocals in order to create a track that tugs the listener earthwards with its grit, but tempers that with something of a lighter otherworldliness.

And so, behold the living room session for ‘Hshsh’! This one I pulled together using Ben’s work as the backing, and adding my vocals on top (what a treat to only need to play very little!) with a little sprinkling of extra synth work. In it I’m wearing pieces from the Etta Every collection.

To view the Etta Every collection it accompanied, visit here.

Listen to the original track here. Lyrics below video.

Lyrics:

still fighting the heartbreak
deep within, i'm bleeding still
i'm bleeding
bleeding

still hurting, still warring
with the sound of my own heart
i'm bleeding
bleeding, bleeding, bleeding

this heartache, this daybreak
of a morning torn in two
i'm bleeding
bleeding

this new day won't replay
what has passed, you'll be my last
i'm bleeding
bleeding, bleeding, bleeding

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