In keeping with what has become annual tradition, here is Heart-Ships with Undress Me Down to The Bone from FOIL, the record they released right before they broke up. You can listen to the rest of it at their Soundcloud. The video is by visual artist Irina Haugane.
I’m going to close out this month of daily posts by crashing April’s ongoing Leeds-party with Undress Me To The Bone, by Heart-Ships. They broke up a year ago; I’m still sad, and this song still haunts me.
The last time we checked in with Heart-Ships was last October, and since then they’ve released a bunch of new music including a full-length record called Foil (YAY!) and split up (NOT YAY, MASSIVE :().
I listened to Foil late last night, and on the whole it is breathtaking. But there are a few songs that sank their claws into me. One of them was Undress Me To The Bone, which I present here in video form, because they did a “garden session” and sang it acoustic and it sounds like a diamond being wrenched out of them by force.
This is the album version, which is worth listening to for the contrast: the lament sounds almost like an anthem.
Also strong: Nadine, Heart of a Wrestler and We Were Quick to Bang The Drum.
Reasons why I am very fond of Heart-Ships:
1. That name! All I can imagine is little heart-shaped ships, or ships with big red heart-shaped sails, navigating rocky channels. Go, brave little ships, go!
2. The hand-claps/drum combo intro on Pin-Hole of Light. It says Here we go! Get ready! Stand up! It is almost time to rock out! Also the glorious little trill at the 1.15 mark that gooses the tempo and adds a frisson of traditional Celtic sound to the proceedings. You can’t really dance the jig to the whole song, but you might want to try, for parts of it.
5. Ryan Cooke, their lead singer, has a rich, flexible voice, and even when it is filled with ache and sadness – perhaps especially when it is filled with ache and sadness – it soars, as you can hear below, in Air Balloon:
6. And also here, in Spray Paint:
7. This is pop music, but it is majestic, stirring pop music. Majestic, stirring, and a little off-kilter; fight songs and anthems and love songs for the few, the proud, the extremely fond of tiny boats fighting big currents and robots with eye-lasers.
