Asthmatic Harp - To The Boats (ft. Sophie Kilburn)

Asthmatic Harp is the musical moniker of Glasgow based songwriter and composer Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones. Asthmatic Harp is synonymous with a sound that manages to be comforting, folksy, eerie and personal, all at once.

Born in Denmark before moving to the UK, Hannah began performing on the London music scene with her debut EP Lost Astronaut in 2015.

In 2018 Hannah was handpicked to the prestigious Roundhouse Resident Artist Program, she completed the residency with impressive achievements such as playing the 1,700 seated capacity Roundhouse main stage as the opening act for Sam Palladio, and developing exciting collaborations with fellow Roundhouse artists Sophie Kilburn and Kid Jupiter.

Thriving on creativity in songwriting and collaboration , Hannah is also the founder of the new Glasgow artist collective called, Blue Tongue Collective, that aims to support and sustain a thriving scene of musicians and songwriters who are passionately going about things their own way.

The new single To The Boats is released today, Wednesday 3 June 2020 and follows on from Birds of Paradise which received airplay on Tom Robinson’s After Hours show on BBC6 Music.

The release preempts the EP Things We Learned To Live With which is due for release in the Autumn.

When asked about the inspiration behind song, Hannah said:

To The Boats is a song dedicated to friendship. It speaks of longing for an embrace from a close friend. It pictures the separation, either physical or emotional that can occur between two people, once inseparable. It is a song about the intimacy of hearing “I wish you were here” whispered gently through a mobile phone and received through the vibrations in your ear.

My childhood friend had been in a horrible accident with a bad concussion. For days, I was unsure whether she would ever return to her usual self. I was worried that she had hit her head so badly that all our mutual memories were gone. Using a selection of book titles as the starting point for my writing, helped me find a language for what I could not express in my own words. As soon as the lyrics started forming, the rest of the song just came dancing out of nowhere.

To The Boats is a beautifully haunting track, introduced by the gorgeous harp strings it has an enchanting dream like melody, and oh my god the vocals from Hannah and Sophie are nailed on straight from the outset. They are sung so softly yet purposeful, I was wondering which cloud the angels were sitting on, it’s just delightful and ethereal.

Lyrically it paints that same dreamlike feeling, the opening lines are “tree by leaf deep waters, I wish you were here with me, stone by stone outweighs us, I wish you were here with me” as if someone was imagining a conversation with a dear friend.

The final lines echo the fear of perhaps the memories of a friendship being lost and the struggles to keep them afloat, the words sung exquisitely are “Tiptoe over the bridge to memories we lost to fights we fought and things we learned to live with burning into the night I can’t swim or reach you, I can’t swim or reach you on a lake with no name”.

I am discovering so many new artists on this adventure of blogging and every now an again you are just struck by the wondrous ways that music can impact you and To The Boats is one of those songs, it’s a magical song, uplifting, thought provoking and sad all in the space of just over three minutes, it is an absolute delight to the ears, I adored it !!

I can’t wait for the release of the EP later in the year, and I will be looking out with interest the announcement of any live shows once they are allowed again.

Give To The Boats a stream now:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1X4SfKuBf4yPorzZISDS10?si=ODbFdXHNQ3qiB5q-vymV6Q

Asthmatic Harp can be followed on their Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Spotify pages:

https://www.asthmaticharp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/asthmaticharp

https://instagram.com/asthmaticharp?igshid=1l2nlpo3u0mkc

https://twitter.com/asthmaticharp

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Q4CFZat9gxGJFkTT6VoC9?si=SNXJDtV0S1qasAMimr7mhA