Album Review: Hatchie - 'Keepsake'

Surface level sweet but with consciously textured tales of self-doubt and regret, this record is as dream-pop badass as wearing DMs in a field of candy floss clouds.

Hatchie (real name Harriette Pilbeam) is the pearly master of delighted “what the heck this is literally me” relatable realness. Gloriously encapsulating those in-between years of simultaneously feeling cynically grown up and naively youthful, the Brisbane native’s debut ‘Keepsake’ cultivates a blushing atmosphere of textured feel-good even when it’s bad euphoria and rejoiced nostalgia; and whilst arguably we are all forging individual paths through this weird old world we call home there’s a sense of appreciated universality in Hatchie’s songwriting that’s undeniably charming.

Swirling through channels of wistful rose quartz tinted choruses and industrialised synths of epic 80s throwback proportions it’s not hard to draw comparisons to legacy established acts such as Kylie or Robyn. ‘Keepsake’ sounds like all the heightened memories of growing up thrown into a forty-minute photo album of first kiss anthemic spoken word, riffs that linger like the smell of rain in summer and a relentless longing for something, someone, anything else. The perfect balance of melancholic wooziness and sugary addictiveness tracks such as ‘Keep’ and ‘Obsessed’ are slumber party classic perfection whilst ‘Without A Blush’ and ‘Secret’ are slow-burning mood builders that shoegaze their way through glittered subtlety and sentimental depth.

The perfect mid-summer record for reflective souls and feel good-ers that will continuously bring captured nuances upon every inevitable repeated play.

Words by Al Mills

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