Holly Arrowsmith announces new album 'A Dawn I Remember'
/Daughter of the cold, southern mountains, Holly Arrowsmith has announced the release of her new album A Dawn I Remember. The award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter also shares today, a captivating new song titled ‘Farewell’ with a picturesque music video filmed in Canterbury and directed by Brisbane based videographer Theresa Fryer.
The early sketches of ‘Farewell’ came together on a car ride through the Kawarau Gorge as Holly left her beloved hometown of Queenstown for good. Leaving the comforts of “home” for a chance in the bright lights of Auckland, Arrowsmith’s poignant recounting of the day captures that back-of-your-throat discomfort of departure from home; from many familiar things. Marking a new chapter in Arrowsmith’s life, ‘Farewell’ also sparked a new chapter in her songwriting.
“This was the beginning of this collection of songs. The purity of nature and close embrace of small-town life, contrasted with the pollution and non-personal nature of the city,” says Arrowsmith.
Last year, she was able to raise $24,678 through Kickstarter to fund the recording, production and output of the new album (well above her goal of $21,000) thanks to the support of 335 backers.
“The album was written over a very difficult but experientially rich time of life,” the young New Mexico-born singer-songwriter tells us. “I was grappling with a loss of identity, as I left a place which is so deeply 'home' for me and as I found, more intertwined in so many levels of my being than I knew. I still feel like I am recovering from the losses that ensued, and slowly finding ways to repurpose those spaces again.”
A self-written volume, A Dawn I Remember would slowly take shape over two years. The vast majority of the songs being written in New Zealand, though one was penned in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Slow Train Creek).
“At the same time we were travelling, meeting wonderful people and sharing music on the other side of the world, but always longing for the very human desire for one place - and often a place or time that we can't return to,” Arrowsmith explains. “The line 'A Dawn I Remember' captured that feeling, I read it in a Rumi poem (13th Century poet) and it made me cry. I had a feeling that the album's name would jump out from something I'd read.”
The songs that would soon band together to create an album, were then recorded in the small southern New Zealand town of Colac Bay with Steve Roberts and Tom Lynch, and finished off at The Sitting Room with widely acclaimed, award-winning engineer and producer Ben Edwards (Julia Jacklin, Tami Neilson, Marlon Williams, Delaney Davidson).
Over nine tracks, Arrowsmith addresses homesickness, experiencing loss and painful growth, and finding renewed hope in the dim places. These are experiences documented and compiled over her journey north and back south again, intertwining references to nature and the mountains around Lake Wakatipu that raised her. She cites the dark forests hidden along the sweeping, stretching southern roads, along with characters she met along the way in a gorgeous collection of songs - each with their own engaging, observational tale.
“This is my most honest yet,” she declares.
Tracklisting
The Gardener
Winter Moon
Farewell
Love Together
A View From Above
Every Kingdom
Crying Woman
Autumn
Slow Train Creek