Love Always, SKM + Quaking Aspens

Form Presents:

Love Always, SKM

Love Always, SKM is the new project from indie singer/songwriter Jimmy Herrity. His style dives into the dark and insular corners of indie and folk, echoing the consuming melancholy, and meditative instrumentals of songwriters like Phil Elverum or Jason Molina, but from a devastatingly personal lens. The project first began as an outlet for Herrity’s grief after the loss of his brother, a tragedy that shades the haunting lyricism of his new debut single, “The Woods.”

“The Woods” is an encapsulation of the ruin, regrets, and desolation that comes with grief. The track begins sparse and echoing as if the loss itself has hollowed out a hole at the center of it. Even as Herrity is joined by longing harmonies and his voice ascends toward a powerful climax, the track’s heights feel desperate and heartbroken, like a cascade of long-repressed emotion finally bursting through. Ultimately, the track’s most heartrending moments come in the simplest of lyrics, as Herrity reaches out towards someone he knows can’t answer: “Please don’t go yet / I need more than / People’s answers / People’s bullshit / They don’t know what / Our favorite joke is / And all the dumb shit we did / When we were kids.”

Herrity says of the track, “‘The Woods’ is an elephant, a sore thumb, an open wound. There’s no metaphors or poetry really, it’s the scrambled thoughts of a man desperate to save someone that he knows is probably already gone. Everything that was going through my head just before and just after I was informed my brother had died. A cascade of desolation and futility, like trying to light your last match in the pouring rain, and a type of loneliness I can’t really describe, something so integral is just suddenly gone, it’s like losing half my brain. I have no problem whatsoever with being vulnerable, just a strong desire to try and capture the shock of that time.

From a sonic perspective ‘The Woods’ really different to the other music I have coming out because there’s almost no production. There’s cleaner versions of it on my computer with string arrangements and all sorts but in the end, I needed it to feel raw and absolutely fucking gutting, almost uncomfortable to listen to.” –Caleb Campbell (Under the radar)

Support From:
Quaking Aspens