GREAT COMFORT RECORDS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Vermont-based Hallowell to release lead single and video, “Follow (feat. Elin Smith)” for upcoming 2018 record on Great Comfort Records
BURLINGTON, VT – Great Comfort Records proudly announces the release of a new single and music video, “Follow” by Hallowell, a newly signed project by songwriter (and Presbyterian minister) Joseph Pensak.
“Follow” is the lead single from the self-titled album, Hallowell, slated for a late spring 2018 digital and vinyl release on Great Comfort. A wistful, lush ballad, “Follow” features harmony vocals by Danielson singer Elin Smith and suggests a collaboration between Sparklehorse and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It’s a song, says Memphis, TN-born Pensak, inspired as much by his love of Tropicália – which grew as he worked among the Brazilian community in Cambridge, MA while a seminary student – as by the Quebecois-influenced culture of his current home, Burlington, Vermont. “I wanted to write a sort of modern hymn reflecting both my place and the music I’ve been soaked in for the past twenty five years,” says Pensak. “It’s Bjork and Lambchop and The Sea and Cake as much as it’s Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa; I’ve listened to it all so much, it’s in my bloodstream.”
Lyrically, “Follow” is cast in the poetic style of William Carlos Williams and ee Cummings. The song’s central image, “minnows in tide pools,” explores something at once beautiful and precarious. “‘Oh, this is everything!’ the minnows think – and yet they are trapped, right beside the vastness of the ocean. And in the song, grace is the ocean coming to them, freeing them. We often don’t think of faith that way, as finally opening up the world, freeing you from a small and safe existence. There’s a loss of control that ironically leads to true freedom, and a vast and scary expanse of love that came and got you.”
Pensak is the founder and minister of Redeemer Burlington and head curator of New City Galerie, an art gallery in Burlington. He cut his teeth as the drummer for the slo-core band, Kelly Wingate (Trent Dabbs’ first band), and was the co-founder and co-songwriter (with Isaac Wardell) of the ecumenical music collective Bifrost Arts. Hallowell is Pensak’s first solo record.
New Jersey based label, Great Comfort Records, was founded in 2009 by Lenny & Marian Smith, their son Daniel, and his wife Elin. Lenny most famously authored the modern worship classic, “Our God Reigns” (a favorite of Pope John Paul II), while Daniel has fronted various musical projects through his indie pop collective, Danielson.
For interview requests, bio, photos, and more, contact Lenny Smith at lenny@greatcomfortrecords.com and Hallowell at hallowell.music@gmail.com.