Rippling acoustic guitars and a cello that makes you weep opens up the absolutely gorgeous single ‘Snow Day’ from Naarm/Melbourne artist Hannah Potter. Her mellifluous and velvet-toned voce enters, gliding effortlessly over the surface like a silken veil on a babbling stream. This track is simply filled with an aching beauty that is iridescent.
The repeated arpeggiated guitar has echoes of Radiohead, Potter’s vocals recall Cat Power, P.J. Harvey or Sharon Van Etten at times, displaying an incredible rage, with delicate harmonies adding a filigree of gold.
Potter recalls an early influence in her songwriting:
My first actual music memory is listening to the album ‘Murder Ballads’ by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, at around four years old. I asked my Dad why someone would bash another person’s head in with a rock… ‘some people just aren’t right in the head’. I think everything I write musically has a weird echo of that first memory – trying to understand how and why human beings hurt each other.
The track is born from deeply person experiences. Potter says:
From about 10 to 24 I was completely numb physically and emotionally. I wanted to connect and feel things, but my system was basically frozen. Part of the song is about looking back and wishing I had had the ability to have shown up differently for people who had tried to love me in the past. But also, being happy now that I’m not the person I used to be. I suppose the song is about wishing you could have savoured something a lot more than you did.
The melancholy seeps into every note, creating something breathtakingly beautiful and shimmering.
What is even more incredible is that this is Potter’s debut single, after regularly appearing live around Naarm/Melbourne. Hers is clearly a prodigious talent.
Directed and edited by Madeline Royce, the accompanying video is a dreamy journey, part performance, part vignettes of life that fits the dreamy tones of the track:
‘Snow Day’ is out now and available to stream and download here. ‘Snow Day’ was recorded live at The Rat Shack with Rob Muinos, co-mixed by Potter and Muinos, and mastered by Mikey Young.
Potter will be launching the single on Thursday May 28th at The Retreat
Hannah Potter plays guitar and sings along with Charles Ellis on drums, Mark Valentine on bass. Cello on ‘Snow Day’ was performed by Giselle An.
Art work: Hannah Potter, Feature Photograph: Young Ha Kim
