Hem – Rabbit Songs: 25th Anniversary Edition
On November 28th, Brooklyn alt-folk band Hem will release a remastered reissue of their debut album Rabbit Songs in celebration of its 25th anniversary.
The album, described by NPR upon its initial release as a “beautiful and unique…homey, fireside kind of a record,” will receive its first-ever vinyl release plus a fully remastered digital version. The digital release will include the bonus track “St. Charlene,” a tune from the Rabbit Songs era that previously was found only on a hard-to-find EP. Along with the announcement, the band shared the lead single, the remastered “Half Acre.”
I grew up on a half acre in Michigan, and the idea of home has always been central to my songs,” songwriter Dan Messé reflects on the track. “The time and place is long gone, but we carry these places with us.”
“When we were playing through ‘Half Acre’ and we heard the sound, it just clicked. It was like, wait a minute, we could actually do this.” Messé remembers that moment in the studio when an upstart Brooklyn ensemble called Hem began recording their debut album, Rabbit Songs. Messé had been working for months with his friends and fellow musicians Gary Maurer and Steve Curtis on a batch of richly melodic songs that needed a hauntingly beautiful voice. They found it at that session when Sally Ellyson began to sing: “I am holding half an acre, torn from the map of Michigan…”
Hem’s origin story seemed fated from the start, in particular how they found Ellyson. The band had placed a two-line ad in the Village Voice in April 1999 that read simply: “Female singer wanted for alt folk country record.” Messé fielded enough responses from singers who weren’t what he was looking for that he began to get discouraged, so when Ellyson called, he almost brushed her off. But she gave him a cassette of a cappella lullabies she’d made for family and friends, and he knew as soon as he hit “play” that it was something special. So much so, in fact, that a 25-second snippet taken directly from that cassette became the opening track on Rabbit Songs.
This reissue of Rabbit Songs is the first volley in a reintroduction to a band that never really broke up, but got back-burnered while its members were moving away from Brooklyn and raising families. Messé recently relocated to Philadelphia to be near family; Curtis now lives in New Haven, Connecticut, and Ellyson moved south to Virginia. Only Maurer remains in Brooklyn. But they’ve recently returned to the studio, with plans to ultimately release an album of new material.
In its initial incarnation, Rabbit Songs built momentum slowly but surely. After a limited self-release in 2000 and a U.K. release on Setanta in 2001, the record gained wider attention when prominent indie Bar/None issued it in 2002. Then came major label Dreamworks, which re-released it in July 2003, but the absorption of Dreamworks into Interscope after Universal bought the label limited the album’s visibility. It got another life in 2005 when Rounder Records reissued it after releasing the band’s 2004 album Eveningland. More fans came aboard in 2006 when insurance company Liberty Mutual featured “Half Acre” in a widely-viewed TV commercial. Rabbit Songs received widespread acclaim from prominent outlets such as NPR, which said of Ellyson’s voice: “All around her, piano notes fall like raindrops, even as she sings about the flames of her heart climbing higher, a heat that makes the rain of the music evaporate into mist.”
“It’s beloved by the people who found it, but it wasn’t found by as many people I think would really enjoy it,” Messé says of the band’s desire to get Rabbit Songs back out into the world. “It was such an important part of our lives. I think our work in general is so much about memory, and about how the past affects the present. There should be a thread that connects you from where you started to where you are now. And I think it’s important to maintain the integrity of that thread.”
Rabbit Songs Tracklist:
1. Lord, Blow the Moon Out Please
2. When I Was Drinking
3. Half Acre
4. Burying Song
5. Betting on Trains
6. Leave Me Here
7. All That I’m Good For
8. Idle (The Rabbit Song)
9. Stupid Mouth Shut
10. Lazy Eye
11. Sailor
12. Polly’s Dress
13. Night Like A River
14. The Cuckoo
15. Waltz
16. Horsey
17. St. Charlene (Bonus Track)
#hemmusic