This is essentially a little something for the mid-week to help calm your nerves or find your centre again. Hallowed Ground is partly this warm, familiar, organic snippet of folk music, yet also partly something notably unique and much more interesting than your average acoustic offering.
At less than three minutes long, the track bears listening to several times in a row, at which point it becomes a familiar and soothing experience, and furthermore – you gradually begin to notice and pick out more and more of these minimal yet eloquent moments that really make it special.
The simplicity of the track is in the selection of chords, the instrumentation, the structure, yet it’s not without a distinctly complex sort of beauty. The initial meeting of the acoustic guitar and the electronic vocal effect is quite striking. It pulls you in, but it does so in a very easy going and fitting sort of way. It immediately makes sense, and it’s only when you try to analyse everything that you even realise the unusual nature of such a combination.
The same goes for the two voices that deliver the melodies and the lyrics. The male voice has a slightly different story to tell somehow. The performance takes the exact same lyrics as the female voice, but it presents them with a powerfully different string of emotions. It’s clever, really unexpected, and captivating. The two voices work so well together, the harmonies are stunning in fact, yet you can focus in on one or the other and, in a way, sense that it means something slightly different to each – much as everything does in life to every individual who shares an experience.
The simplicity of the vocal hum, the hook section, adds a beautiful break within the poetry of the lyrics. The round and round nature of the guitar part keeps things consistent, it keeps that thread present for us to remain connected and involved and comforted, yet everything else poses these questions and provokes these thoughts which run much deeper and which, essentially, suggest that we move away from the comfortable, that we dare to look for something further away from ourselves.
Whether or not these were the intentions when writing and creating the track, the fact is that the song has a power about it that leaves its mark on you. The more you listen, the clearer that mark becomes, and the more your perception of the experience may alter and evolve. It’s beautifully unique and creative new music and well worth taking the time out to enjoy.
Download the track or the album Nursery Rhymes over on iTunes (US or UK) or stream it on Spotify.
