New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Following on the heels of last summer's album Long Day in the
Milky Way, Kris Delmhorst will release Light Breaks Through on March 26 - a postscript EP of three additional songs from the same session. The EP will be available exclusively through Bandcamp with a portion of proceeds going to the Food Bank of Massachusetts and today, Delmhorst shares the title track to accompany the release announcement.
"Light Breaks Through" was written from the perspective of witnessing someone wrestling with depression, but translates well to the current mood as a general expression of optimism and relief. A straight-up, unabashed jam, made for a stretch of open road with the windows rolled down. "This one was pure recreation," Delmhorst says. "No overthinking, no discussion, just play it how it feels good."
Long Day in the
Milky Way, released at the peak of 2020's chaos and uncertainty, was a meditation on holding onto hope amidst dark times. Half a year later, Light Breaks Through dares to wear its optimism more overtly and begins to inhabit the brightening that the album had held on faith.
"Back when we were sequencing the album, it absolutely killed me to have to leave out these tracks," Delmhorst recalls. "But as it turns out, this feels like the right moment in time for them. The songs from the album were all delivered from within darkness, wrestling with it in real-time. These three are written from a place just outside it. It's as if the album was saying 'you're gonna make it through,' and the EP says "whew, I think we made it through' - not as simplistic as that, but when I step back from these two groups of songs that's the general trajectory I see."
Cut from the same sonic cloth as the full album, these songs were tracked live with a nine-piece band packed into an antique New England farmhouse, with the rhythm section in the garage, a harpist in the attic, and three backing singers in the living room giving the tracks their warm, populated sound. Harp, electric guitar and keys interweave throughout, carrying the songs effortlessly along like the body of a river.
Coming as an answer to dark times, the songs on Light Breaks Through provide a soundtrack to reflect, regroup, and turn towards a brighter future.
