Death, freedom and the machine: Hermitess faces darkness with improvisation and renewal with Death and The Fool
On the website for Hermitess, Jennifer Crighton is described as 'an aging and slightly reclusive witch.'
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It's a pretty specific description and, while in her Hermitess guise, Crighton can certainly seem like she is from another time and spiritual realm. First, there's the sound. She plays the harp. Her music also encompasses the hurdy-gurdy, a hand-cranked string instrument that dates back to the Middle Ages. Themes and lyrics in her music are often inspired by tarot cards. Her newest album, Death & the Fool, includes meditations on mortality and renewal and family history. The haunting and mournful ballad The Birds Never Left is based on a poem Crighton's grandmother wrote about the death of her eldest son. Three Bells is about a paternal ancestor who captained the titular ship that rescued the crew of the sinking San Francisco in 1853, a tale that was later immortalized by Walt Whitman in Song of Myself.
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But Crighton says she often thought about a more modern concept regarding music-industry norms when recording: The 'aging' part of the description.
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'I joke about being an old lady,' Crighton says. 'I'm not really that old, but there is such a strong push towards being young and fresh in music. For me, the important story to tell on this record was what happens when you mature as a musician. I feel like I am the most in control of my craft the older I get, yet the concept that I'm less marketable as I age surprises me. When your experiences get richer, you have more material to work with and more to reflect on in life as you get older. So that was part of the story for me with this record.'
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Crighton has been playing under the Hermitess banner since her 2017 self-titled debut, which she released after a decade of playing in Calgary acts such as The Consonant C and Devonian Gardens.
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The 'slightly reclusive witch' angle started with authenticity after Crighton landed a two-week writing residency in 2005, where she stayed in a cabin in the woods in northern Michigan with little more than her harp for company. Her 2017 debut was followed by two EPs, which were both released in 2020. The first, Tower, was recorded at the National Music Centre before the pandemic, while Celestial was largely recorded with Crighton and a handful of guests during lockdowns.
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Co-produced by Crighton and Chris Dadge, Death & The Fool was inspired by big questions about life, death, identity, aging and mortality. These themes have been top of mind for Crighton after the death of both her father and her partner's mother.
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