Palehound
A Place I’ll Always Go
Release Date: June 16, 2017
The sophomore album from Boston trio Palehound, A Place I’ll Always Go, is a frank look at love
and loss, cushioned by indelible hooks and gently propulsive, fuzzed-out rock.
Ellen Kempner, Palehound’s vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter explains, “A lot of it is about loss
and learning how to let yourself evolve past the pain and the weird guilt that comes along with
grief.”
Kempner’s writing comes from upheavals she experienced in 2015 and 2016 that reframed her
worldview. “I lost two people I was really close with,” she recalls. “I lost my friend Lily. I lost my
grandmother too, but you expect that at 22. When you lose a friend—a young friend—nothing
can prepare you for that. A lot of the record is about going on with your life, while knowing that
person is missing what’s happening—they loved music and they’re missing these great records
that come out, and they’re missing these shows that they would’ve wanted to go to. It just threw
me for a loop to know that life is so fragile.”
Palehound’s first release for Polyvinyl is also about the light that gradually dawns after tragedy,
with songs like the bass-heavy “Room” and the gentle dreamy album closer “At Night I’m Alright
With You” feeling their way through blossoming love. “The album is also about learning how to
find love, honestly, after loss,” says Kempner.
Since forming in 2014, Palehound—Kempner, drummer Jesse Weiss (Spook The Herd), and new
bassist Larz Brogan (a veteran of Boston DIY who, Kempner posits, “had 13 local bands last
year”)—have taken their plainspoken, technique-heavy indie rock from the basements of Boston
to festivals around the world. A Place I’ll Always Go was recorded in late 2016 at the Brooklyn
complex Thump Studios with the assistance of Gabe Wax, who recorded Dry Food. “I would put
my life in his hands,” Kempner asserts. “I trust him so much.”
A Place I’ll Always Go builds on the promise of Palehound’s critically acclaimed 2015 album Dry
Food with songs that are slightly more reserved, but no less powerful. “Flowing Over” rides a
sweetly hooky guitar line, with Kempner using the fuzzed-out upper register of her voice as a
sort of anxious counterpoint to the riff’s infectious melody. “That song is about anxiety,” says
Kempner, “and when you’re sad and you listen to sad music to feed it and feel yourself spinning
all these ‘what if’s and ‘I’m terrible’s in your head.”
“This record represents a period of time in my life way more than anything I’ve ever written
before,” says Kempner, who notes that the swirling “If You Met Her” and the piano-tinged “At
Night I’m Alright With You” could represent the opposing poles of the record. “One of them is
about love, and the other one is about death—it was a really healthy experience for me to find
my own dialogue within that,” she says. “There’s so much that you learn and read, and other
people’s experiences that you internalize, that you try to then base your own on. It was helpful to
carve my own path for that.”
Part of what makes A Place I’ll Always Go so striking is the way it channels feelings of anxiety
-- heart-racing moments both exhilarating and crushing -- into songs that feel well-worn and
comforting.
1. Hunter’s Gun
2. Carnations
3. Room
4. If You Met Her
5. Silver Toaster
6. Turning 21
7. Flowing Over
8. Backseat
9. Feeling Fruit
10. At Night I’m Alright With You
The hushed confessionalism of “Carnations” and the fugue state described in the stripped-down
“Feeling Fruit” are snapshots of moments marked by big, confusing feelings, but they’re taken
with compassion and honesty—two qualities that have defined Palehound’s music from the
beginning.
Press Contact: Sarah Avrin
facebook.com/palehoundsounds
[email protected]
twitter.com/palehound
girlieaction.com
palehound.com polyvinylrecords.com/press/palehound