YouTube Unlisted Streaming Playlist
FREE GOOGLE DRIVE DOWNLOADS (.WAV and .Mp3)
Spotify Pre-Save
Bandcamp

Release date: October 25, 2024
FCC: 8
Recommended: 2, 8, 1, 6
RIYL: Woods, Kurt Vile, MGMT, Animal Collective, Flaming Lips, Grizzly Bear, Kevin Morby, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens
Genre: Art Pop, Indie, Psychedelic Folk, Psychedelic Pop.

TRACK LISTING
1. Traveling Merchant (3:38)
2. Everything Under the Sun (4:19)
3. Underwater Breathing (3:23)
4. Crashing Dragons (4:39)
5. Runnin’ For Your Life (4:41)
6. When We Try (4:08)
7. Green Stem (3:40)
8. Wake Up, Winston (3:13)
9. Treehouse (1:50)
10. You (3:01)

Written & Produced by Mitch Etter

ABOUT THE RECORD

Hi Crime’s 3rd LP, Spirit & Candor showcases a musical departure for the indie project by way of departing band members, and a desire to craft songs with a new direction.

Following the 2023 release of Hi Crime’s second LP Midori, the band’s co-founders Mitch Etter and Brielle Rutledge had a meeting where Brielle expressed her desire to step away from the band to focus on her visual art. Instead of putting the band on an indefinite-hiatus, Mitch chose to use the opportunity to challenge himself and seek new ways of making music alone.

Mitch explains, “Most of my favorite artists evolve over time, and I realized that most of Hi Crime’s music had been in a certain electric guitar-led, indie pop style. I wanted to explore new territory like my heroes do, so I gave myself assignments that forced me out out of my comfort zone. To start, I chose to focus on acoustic sounds this time. More importantly, I tuned my guitar to the point where I didn't know how to play it anymore. Not an open chord tuning, just a random selection of notes that made no sense to me. The purpose of doing this was to break patterns I had fallen into. Like many musicians, I have a habit of gravitating to certain chord changes and melodic patterns. By taking away my theory knowledge of the instrument, I bypassed my normal conventions, and every part of the creative process became an act of discovery.”

This is how the album opener “Traveling Merchant” was born and set the tone for the whole record.

“With this new guitar tuning, I put my fingers in odd shapes until the guitar made a sound I found interesting. The opening chord of ‘Traveling Merchant’ immediately felt hypnotic, but I didn’t know where to go after that. I continued experimenting with different hand positions on the fretboard, and by making tons of mistakes, countless ‘happy accidents’ made their way into the song. All of those mistakes sounded fresh, exciting, and appropriate for the songs on this record. When I reached the end of ‘Traveling Merchant’, I thought that the ending didn’t feel like a proper song outro, so I tried writing a new outro. As it turns out, that idea was another happy accident. The new outro quickly became a whole second song, and from that moment I knew I had to keep going.”

Those first two songs became a five song suite making up the first half of the album, collectively known as the “Spirit Suite”. It’s the first time Hi Crime has made the effort to have songs flow into each other, and tell a continuous story. For those closely following lyrics, the “Spirit Suite” story is told out of sequence, and at times is fairly abstract lyrically.

Spirit & Candor is also the first time Mitch has sung lead vocals for Hi Crime. He initially planned to bring in guest vocalists as collaborators, but bandmates and friends encouraged Mitch to try singing himself. He states,

“I’ve always written lyrics for the band, but to sing them myself has been a liberating, yet scary experience. I just know my voice has so many limitations, it can’t do everything I want it to do. But singing my own words allowed me to express certain feelings, and write lyrics in a way I haven’t before. When I write lyrics for others to sing, I kind of write in character, and try to personify a voice that fits them. The opportunity to sing my own words led me to writing more personally. Sometimes disguising meanings with imagery and metaphor, and sometimes writing very raw and emotionally honest lyrics. The second half of the album is comprised of some of these type of songs. They are not thematically linked to the ‘Spirit Suite’ and instead make up the ‘Candor’ side of the album.”

Being a predominately solo endeavor, Spirit & Candor was recorded as it was being written. Demos were recorded to capture the energy of songs, and in every case, those demos became the foundation of the album. As a result, much of what is heard on the album is comprised of first takes and relaxed performances. It’s different than past Hi Crime releases, and we hope you connect with it. Thank you for reading, listening, and watching.

- Hi Crime

CREDITS

Mitch Etter - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Mandolin, Banjo, Piano, Synths, Autoharp, Percussion, Programming, Production, Mixing.

Aaron Goldman - Drums 1-5,7,9
Cody McCann - Drums 6
Nik Singleton - Harmony vocals 2,4,7
Jessie Thoreson - Harmony vocals 2-3
John Thornburg - Additional vocals 5

Brad Kaminski - Drum recording engineer
Cole Paramore - Drum mixing assistance
Matt Ogaz - Mastering

MUSIC VIDEOS

Hi Crime’s past music videos for “Barefoot Pretender”, “Rainy Days & Crooked Sheets”, and “Wait” have been locally celebrated by film festivals and art organizations including the NW Film Forum, and NFTTY… The band is excited to offer up new music videos and visualizers for the Spirit & Candor album cycle.

VIDEOS:
“Wake Up, Winston.” Oct 25, 2024 release
“Traveling Merchant.” 2025 release TBD

Wake Up, Winston

Hi Crime listeners submitted footage of their dogs for the “Wake Up, Winston” music video. Video released October 25, 2024

“Official Audio” VIDEO Playlist

Traveling Merchant

LYRICS

Press Materials

All lyrics are available in the YouTube Official Audio playlist descriptions

Approved images can be downloaded in HQ here. Photographer credit on all photos: Dylan Randolph.