JESSE SYKES & THE SWEET HEREAFTER
SHARE THE TITLE TRACK OF THEIR NEW ALBUM
“FOREVER, I’VE BEEN BEING BORN”
TO BE RELEASED ON 28TH NOVEMBER
Today, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter share the final pre-release taste of the new album, the title track, “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born.” Jesse has a special note to share on the release of this song.
It was she, my mother, that once said to me, “record me your heart”… so I did. This song is a celebration of life and of existence as seen from above, from a great distance —perhaps the moment when one pulls the lens so far back that they look both into and out from the cosmos.
It is a celebration of the moment of death, and the journey and mystery that unfolds for both the living and dying at that precise moment that death comes. I can feel the song unfolding into a dance of sorts, or a call and response that symbolizes a revelatory cosmic reunion after the hard work of the dying is done.
Phil’s guitar ebbs and flows much the way the breath does at the end. I wrote (many songs on this album) after our beloved old dog Ruby had died in my arms at home, and I said in that moment she died that it was like she and I were riding a toboggan together across the universe, but I stopped and she kept going.
I want to feel that with my mother as I sit by her bedside writing this song’s release announcement, awaiting her departure towards her next journey. That swooping moment of transcendence.
These were her last clear and concise words to me spoken in a lucid moment before we left the hospital to go into hospice. She said, “I want you all to myself, forever.” She has me forever and had me before, forever. This song, like all my songs, is for her. Because she “got it“ in all its somber glory.
I hope you, the listener who finds this song, will hear within it, that sense of a journey, as it might be for you or a loved one when the final rip chord is pulled and you both fall into the gentle calm that follows. I hope you feel love and the lapse of time, if you are able to truly get inside of it. I just hope you feel something.
As I always say, “listen in the dark.”
It’s that ancient light that wanders
Rapt in the splendor of your form
It’s to this I will surrender
Forever, I’ve been being born
Ten years in the making, this is their first new album since 2011’s Marble Son and fifth since 2002. Forever, I’ve Been Being Born arrives on the 28th November on LP/CD/DL via Ideologic Organ in Europe/UK/Asia/South America. Southern Lord to release the album in North America and Australasia.
Forever, I’ve Been Being Born is a suite of masterful, emotive songs from an open heart, dwelling in a brightness yet deep in the ethereal and melancholic, steeped in themes of magical thinking, emotional dislocation, death and transformation. In the making for ten years, the album centres around the power of Jesse’s transcendent voice, which has never been more beautiful, evocative, and hauntingly intimate. Guitarist Phil Wandscher‘s playing masterfully frames these songs with classic and fractured tones, a duet of vulnerability and strength frequently on the edge.
REVISIT THE BEAUTIFUL VIDEO FOR “DEAD END POOLS” BELOW
“This album is our attempt to create elegant folk and sometimes ragged, cosmic, heart rendered songs full of eulogies and laments. Our sound is still familiar enough, but unrecognisable at times—we’ve gotten older and wearier, the music more fragile…
…When we started recording this album, I remember saying, “Play the songs as if the edge of a butterfly wing was brushing against your cheek in the dark while you’re holding a small child.” I wanted to connote tenderness and a state of grace in the wake of resolution—paying homage to the creeping knowledge of an emerging, menacing undertone forming in our collective psyche. In hindsight, the delay in releasing this record has been a bit of a blessing, as the lyrics seem more poignant now, transcending our own internal voices and psyches. As the world shares its collective crisis, so we too, share our songs.” – J. Sykes
Forever, I’ve Been Being Born album cover
Photo credit: Anita Nowacka