New Music: Gia Margaret ~ “Hinoki Wood” b/w “Cicadas”

New Music: Gia Margaret “Hinoki Wood” b/w “Cicadas” ~ words by tom johnson

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I saw a cicada once. It sat on a metal table, heated by the sun, on a sidewalk in Rock Island, Illinois. I heard them first, of course, you always do. That startling throng of electricity they fill the streets with, so alien to someone like me, someone not from there. I never felt so far from home as in that moment, seeing that bug I’d mispronounced for so much of my life, that I’d been fascinated by. So large and full of colour.

Earlier that day we sat by the edge of the great Mississippi River, neither of us speaking while we watched a train across the water passing us by for what felt like hours, days, lifetimes. A row of carriages that never seemed to stop. Even now I can’t tell you how much time we lost to that train. 

On the great muddy waters that flowed at our feet, we watched ships float both up and down. We learned that the same water beneath us somehow travelled the length of the country, all the way to New Orleans. An unfathomable distance we couldn’t make sense of. Later on, we found a bar that offered half-price beers for however long the bridge stayed open as it swung its great arms wide to let the bigger vessels through. I never felt so far from home. I don’t think I ever have since.

A few hours south of Rock Island is Chicago, home to the songwriter Gia Margaret, who returned this week with “Cicadas”, a brand new piece of music, and one of two songs released to announce her brand new album, Romantic Piano, alongside lead single “Hinoki Wood”. Released at the end of May, via her new home of Jagjaguwar, its a “pandemic record” in the most alluring of ways, featuring cryptic, untethered colours that present a musical collage of the most strange days we’ll probably ever witness.

Much like her previous LP, Mia Garagret, Romantic Piano is mostly comprised of ambient mostly-instrumentals rather than the more standard singer-songwriter fare of her stunning debut, There’s Always Glimmer – GFP’s Album of the Year back in 2018. Gia’s voice does appear on the new album – a gentle reminder of the spell it holds – and she’s confirmed that she’s currently finishing a less ambiguous, voice-centred album to be released in the not-too-distant future. 

For now, we have these two new pieces of music to climb inside. Formed of field recordings and tender playing “Cicadas” is a drifting hum of melancholy, not too dissimilar to the quieter moments on Ricky Eat Acid’s much-heralded Three Love Songs LP. “Hinoki Wood” is more altogether more defined, a playful ninety-seconds of bright piano that arrives alongside an inspired claymation video, made by Gaia Alari. 

Indicative of Gia’s gift for crafting pensive magic seemingly out of thin air, these moody pieces are indicative of an album that feels immediately captivating but altogether untouchable. It’s an album of solitude and delight, oddly shaped atmospheres that both compel and confound; like strange sounds on hot days – bursting out unseen from the trees above you – like memories of places you occasionally remember you sat within. 

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Written by GoldFlakePaint | A Music Magazine