Hello Shark finds light in hell
If I had to choose the work of one artist to succinctly ribbon-bow the whole ethos / spirit / mood of GoldFlakePaint over the years it might well be that of Hello Shark. As with Lincoln Halloran's music, which has been rendered beautifully through a handful of Hello Shark records since his 2011 debut, I can't quite define what it is that stirs that sentiment, just that there's something in the slightly untidy, undeniably human, underdog spirit of it all that just seems to fit.
It's a long time ago now, but I think I initially found Hello Shark through a Bandcamp trawl in the (golden) old blogging days, drawn in by the wonky, snapshot album covers, forced to stay by the immediate melancholy of the songs held within. I know his first two records Break Arms and HS like homes I once lived in; the passing of time blurring the sharper edges while the finer, more intimate details feel even more formative as seasons and people and places shift and change, arrive and leave. "I used to think love was bobby pins lost in bed," he sings in the perfect opening line to the HS LP).
The excellent Orindal Records (Julie Byrne, Gia Margaret, Friendship, Advance Base) then signed Hello Shark in the mid 2010's, packaging up those first two records as a double-cassette, and also releasing the band's equally poignant third LP, Delicate, in 2016, which saw Halloran's music grow into a bigger form once more, adding new layers and voices, and also cutting through to a wider audience than before.
In the ten years since, however, there's only been a rarities compilation, which included a lovely Shania Twain cover with Free Cake For Every Creature, and a beautiful standalone single released on Bandcamp a couple of years ago.
Beautiful news, then, that Halloran has announced his signing this week to our good friends over at Father/Daughter Records, while also sharing a brand new song, from a brand new chapter, alongside tour dates with Greg Freeman this coming Autumn.
As for the new song, 'In Hell' is quintessential in its lived-in but still ambiguous poignancy, the lyrics placing us right in the heart of a thought, a relationship we can never really know the shape of but somehow still seems to resonate so much. Halloran's voice is as taciturn as ever, folding into the cracks left by the hovering guitars, the wandering shuffle of the drums: "I loved watching you laughing outside, holding your friend crying cuz your moving home," he sings from the sidelines, before asking "are you still?" – a question that could hold so many differing answers depending on how the light catches it.
And that's the kind of fractured magic that's always run through the heart of Hello Shark, a glimpse of light and dark in the same moment, the feeling of both that lingers long after. It's good to be back there again.
In Hell is out now, available via Bandcamp
