Listen: Hannah Cohen - "Keepsake" [Premiere]

07 January 2015, 14:00 | Written by Laurence Day

(Tracks)

(Hannah Cohen)

We were big fans of Hannah Cohen when she released her debut record Child Bride, and even recorded a session with her, so when we found out that she was getting ready to drop Pleasure Boy, a new record, we got pretty excited.

We got even more excited when we got our ears round "Keepsake", the lead track from that record. It's a synth-led number with a glut of pop timbres, sampled backing vox and mysterious bass drones. It's gauzy, doused in romantic maxims like "tell me you still love me" and "if I asked you to leave her, would you go?", all about the tumult of love. It's dramatic, swoony and, more obviously, a complete change for Cohen.

Speaking about the album and working with Thomas Bartlett, AKA Doveman, Cohen said:

“Over the last two years, it’s all been super-shoegazey stuff, we just went the other way... I wanted the music to hurt, to have a visceral effect. Pleasure Boy is a character of who it’s about, someone who represents gluttony and decadence and richness... [It was made by] bunkering down with my songs, experimenting with different tones and sounds, and layering them. My first record was so airy and roomy, I didn’t have patience for that again, I wanted more movement, something more mysterious and witchier, so we created this sound wall together.”

Pleasure Boy is out 30 March via Bella Union.

Listen to the track below and watch the album teaser announcement after.