18 January 2023 - 0 Comments

Miriam Clancy's single Black Heart continues the thematic trajectory of deeply personal narratives featured on her forthcoming album, Black Heart, out on 3 February 2023.

Black Heart transports the listener back in time to an 80's-esque musical capsule - urgent, haunting vocals deliver naked and imploring lyrics, its big synth-heavy chorus crescendos, then pulls back like a wave on the sand, called back to the ocean. Miriam speaks to a man who ended up living alone with his WWII-scarred psyche, fortified with thick emotional walls - Miriam's grandfather, Ivan.

Miriam says, Black Heart is a sonic document about being a part of a war machine, becoming collateral damage on a road that you cannot reverse. These events are felt down the generational line with broken relationships and social dysfunction - they can tattoo a heart black with loss and hardship. My grandfather sailed on the ships of war and I wrote this with him on my heart."

Black Heart was recorded in Mason Jar Studios, Brooklyn with Miriam's band, Jeremy McDonald, Will Graefe and Mike Riddleberger. Miriam says, "We found the arrow of the song shooting into stark, syncopated territory with room to gasp between furies of motion and vocals, building and releasing."

The video for Black Heart invites us into a world of juxtaposition - graceful, fluid dance vs the chaos of war; dynamic songwriting vs unified battle-marching; urgent clarity vs grainy WWII footage. The messaging is complex, driven through Miriam's finesse and the foundational melange of cultural and historical influences.

Miriam says, "The music video flows from my love of ballet and modern dance, and it's inspired by the indelible teenage experience of seeing Marcel Marceau perform live, David Bowie's hair in Labyrinth, Anna Pavlova's fragile dying swan, Kate Bush's Babooshka, Edgar Dega's ballerinas, Vyvyan Basterd from The Young Ones, every tulle skirt or piece of ballet couture in existence - and ANZAC soldiers and the cautionary tales, the ravages of war.

"I began the choreography a year ago in various empty dance studios - spurred on by professional choreographer pal Elizabeth Dishman in NYC. We filmed over two days in a beautiful old church in Kutztown, PA, which has a long history of supporting the arts with work by Keith Haring and music with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed and Philip Glass performing in its sacred space.

Listen to the single Black Heart

Watch the video for Black Heart

New album Black Heart out 3 February 2023.

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