Cold Hart by Ben Collins
Today Filipino-American artist and producer Cold Hart unveils a brooding new single titled “Bag of Hearts”, another preview of his new album ‘Pretty In The Dark’ out on May 17th. Embracing a new mindset that finds the beauty lurking in the darkness, the Long Island based creative draws inspiration from goth icons such as The Cure and Lebanon Hanover for his most vulnerable collection of songs yet.
A morbid profession of infatuation with themes of the occult, “Bag of Hearts” sonically references industrial post-punk with dark atmospheric production that fuses a heavy low end and layered melancholic melodies. On the poignancy of the song’s title, Cold Hart reveals, “It doubles as a metaphor for when you love someone so hard that everyone else becomes meaningless,” hence the hook; “A bag of hearts I throw away”.
“Bag of Hearts”
Tapping Grammy Award winning producer, engineer, and mixer Andrew Dawson (Kanye West, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Code Orange), and longtime collaborator and fellow GOTHBOICLIQUE member, YAWNS, Cold Hart refines his syncretic approach to songwriting on ‘Pretty In The Dark’. Striking the right balance between his past and present he explains, “Working with Andrew and YAWNS together really pushed me to try out new things on this album.” He continues, “I really wanted to do something different, but have a feeling of familiarity at the same time.”
Much has changed for Cold Hart since GBC’s blog-era reign. While his 2021 album Every Day Is A Day was created in the midst of welcoming his newborn daughter and moving from his native Long Beach to Long Island with his wife, Pretty In The Dark is an exhale as he settles into that routine. He’s now a father of two, and after moving deeper into Long Island and adjusting to the rhythm of adulthood, he’s learning to take the nuances of life in stride. Sparked by a new outlook on darkness, Cold Hart reflects on the title’s tongue-in-cheek play on words: “I like standing out in the dark woods and feeling how calm it is. That’s how the album feels; instead of the dark being scary, it’s nice.”
An architect of one of the generation’s most influential musical movements of the 2010s and beyond, Cold Hart co-founded the seminal GOTHBOICLIQUE collective (Lil Peep, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, Horse Head, YAWNS, Lil Tracy) and changed the definition of punk and emo forever. With his fourth solo album Pretty In The Dark, the endless possibilities of the GBC ethos live on as he blends the familiar with the unfamiliar, the light with the dark, and the nostalgic with the contemporary. Continuing to push the boundaries of the unexpected, Cold Hart affirms: “I just want to keep going in a way that’s not where I’m stuck in the state of what you know me as.”
Pretty In The Dark Tracklisting
Rap Show
What Remains
Pretty In The Dark
Bold Riley
My Tasks Alone
Bottle Run Dry
