Heart to HAERTS

I've lately become obsessed with the song & video for HAERTS' "Wings". You can check it out by clicking here. This song perfectly captures the Midwestern Buck magic of my youth. When I showed it to my brother Jordan, he said: "It's like I already know this song. Like it exists inside me." Exactly.

Funny thing is, I went online yesterday to whip up this blog post, and when I went to YouTube to grab the hyperlink I stumbled upon *another* video version of this song. While watching it, I thought: A) It's fan-made, and B) It really captures the essence of the song but its narrative enters a whole different strange terrain than the other video. After sleuthing a bit online, I *think* it's actually the 1st version/interpretation of the band's video! Though HAERTS' self-titled debut was only recently released, various EPs have appeared over the past couple years as the band's promoted itself and worked on the full-length album. By cracky, the shoe-string budget on this must be because they were waiting to land a bigger studio deal and/or music label; I give them credit for scrambling together, hmm, maybe a couple or few thousand dollars and producing such a weird, beautiful story. You can watch this version here. Notice the parallels in tone and filmic style between the two takes? And is it just me, or is part of the 2nd, newer version from the point of view of the ladybug?

I'd say HAERTS is the indie-pop lovechild of HAIM and Chvrches. That about sums things up. It's catchy music -- the deep, nostalgic, melancholic-yet-uplifting kind of catchy that dances inside your blood.


p.s. While at first seemingly unrelated for this blog post, I think this news story from World of Wonder meshes nicely with the vibe of HAERTS' "Wings" and certainly speaks to my relationship with my brothers and our time living in the Midwest. Plus, we spent our formative years in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where the annual international ice sculpture contest took place. Very random and very wonderful! My family has terrific memories of wandering all bundled up amongst the sculptures on the shore of the lake, the Riviera's boardwalk - the smell of cotton candy and popcorn -- just steps away.