Here’s the video premiere for the new single from Once More, Autumn, the musical project led by singer-songwriter Evan Walton. It’s the second single from brand new, debut EP ‘Love is a Sea’, which showcases the Minneapolis-based artist’s gift for crafting personal songs of loss and longing. ‘Hiraeth’ opens with gentle guitar work, then subtle instrumental layers transport the listener into Walton’s introspective world and create a dreamy soundscape to become lost in. Though the song is short, the impact is long, with swirling melody and drifting feelings of loneliness that remain after the song is over. Walton’s lyrics hint at resignation and isolation: “So go ahead, go back to sleep // There’s nothing left but hopes and dreams.” Hiraeth is a complex Welsh word with no direct translation into English; it can mean a combination of deep, wistful longing for home, a yearning nostalgia for something lost or in the past. Once more, Autumn’s song carries that same sense of almost-overwhelming sadness.
The animation by Dedi Suseno features a series of atmospheric line drawings that add to the song’s ethereal sense of abstract mystery. It’s full of symbols and imagery: we see a featureless figure walking alone, then falling apart while soaring through the clouds. Later, the figure is in chains before being grasped in a huge fist. It speaks of isolation and a loss of control and is a powerful accompaniment to the song.
Check out the EP to prompt some deep reflection, but start here with the atmospheric ‘Hiraeth’.
