Nature’s defence mechanisms and warning signs are fascinating.
A beautiful flower may be exotically colorful with the evolutionary purpose to warn of its poison. A butterfly may have artistic patterns on her wings in order to appear like a horrifying face, scaring off predators.
The beautiful complexity of grief is yet another fascinating element of our nature, and today’s featured artist Heren Wolf explores this in poetic depths with his latest track, “Joy”.
London-based Italian singer and composer Heren Wolf has that unique “special something” the Tonemamas are always in search of – he’s someone that has something to say and he says it in a completely captivating way. In this song, the artist is processing the deep grief resulting from his father’s passing away.
Heren Wolf took this mourning process and turned it into a musical masterpiece. In a dreamy musical landscape that sounds like it was recorded in an underwater cathedral, Heren sings with such genuineness in a vulnerable falsetto-voice that reminds us of artists like Bon Iver and Icelandic Ásgeir Trausti. The arrangement breathes – it swells and falls and switches between moments of utter darkness and moments of hope. The artist takes us on a journey that includes folk-like strings to classical chamber-arrangement, cinematic grandeur to singer-songwriter pop. And at the end, the journey reaches an emotional climax that ends in silence with the journey echoing through.
In his words: “Pearls are the result of wounds that heal; it’s the oyster’s way of protecting itself from foreign substances.”
Best listened to while: Just listening, no multitasking allowed.
Listen for this moment: 0:43, the folk-like strings come in as such a pleasant surprise taking some of us home and some of us to an unknown land far away.