I’ve been waiting for details on the sophomore effort from Hariette Pilbeam – aka Hatchie – since lead single “This Enchanted” dropped back in September, and that patience was rewarded yesterday with a flurry of good news from Brisbane’s dreampop queen.
First, the new record is called Giving The World Away and it will be out on April 22 via her new label Secretly Canadian. In the official press release, Pilbeam says:
“There’s more to me than just writing songs about being in love or being heartbroken — there’s a bigger picture than that,” Pilbeam explains. “This album really just feels like the beginning to me, and scratching the surface – and even though it’s my third release as Hatchie, I feel like I’m rebooting from scratch.”
Harriette Pilbeam, Hatchie Announces Album ‘Giving The World Away’ @ Secretly Canadian
And accompanying the news is a North American tour this May and a video for the second taste of the new record, a relatively downbeat but still glossy tune called “Quicksand”. Of the song, Pilbeam says:
“Quicksand” is about dealing with the realisation that you’ll never be satisfied. I started writing it when I was home between tours in 2019 before finishing it with Joe Agius and Dan Nigro the next year. I was feeling guilty and ungrateful for not being happy about a few different things in my life that were technically going well. I had to work through some tough learned thought processes and emotions that had been working away for years to try to understand how to be happy with my present, and stop fixating on my past and future. The video digs deeper into showing this juxtaposition of such sadness and anger despite being surrounded by glamour and grandeur.”
Harriette Pilbeam, Hatchie Announces Album ‘Giving The World Away’ @ Secretly Canadian
And with regards to the video, director Nathan Castiel says:
“For ‘Quicksand’, I created a video that plays off of some tropes of Hollywood glamour in a melancholy and surreal way while giving Harriette room to perform and express the song’s raw emotions. We leaned into a neon-tinged after hours aesthetic and shot on 16mm which added a griminess to the opulent locations and set pieces.”
Nathan Castiel, Hatchie Announces Album ‘Giving The World Away’ @ Secretly Canadian
And so that I’m not just regurgitating the press release, here’s Hatchie discussing the direction of the new record in an interview with NYLON:
Hatchie on Making “Quicksand” and Making her Most Mature Music Yet @ NYLON
