WL//WH Video Of The Day: HAZELENE “Something Positive”

WL//WH Video Of The Day HAZELENE

After gladly hosting her debut release, California-born, Leeds, UK-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Hazelene returns with her second single, “Something Positive”, recorded and mixed by Ian Flynn/Werkhouse Productions (Whitelands, Cheerless) and mastered by Mark Gardener (Ride) at OX4 Sound.

“Something Positive” shifts Hazelene into spooky psych shoegaze territory, drawing on recent psychedelic/rural folk gigs attended over the past year.

There’s a contemplative introspection and mood building that I love by artists such as Smote, R.Loomes, and Lankum. I’m still heavily influenced by “sparse composition masters’ such as Spacemen 3 and Black Thumb, but I went heavier on this new track.Hazelene says

Photo by Lilly Creightmore

Melodic dissonance and a “melted in the sun” Telecaster feel draw from Hazelene’s love of Swervedriver, Bowery Electric, Maria Somerville, Alan Sparhawk, Midding, and fellow Leeds outfit Van Houton.

My sound is DIY through necessity, I lack skills to even collaborate productively, but then there is no one looking over my shoulder admonishing me, ‘you can’t do it like that.’ So if I smash a Frank Ocean bassline into a spooky psych shoegaze feel track, who will stop me? I consider myself an outlier, a Latino descendant expat in Yorkshire, and being neither here nor there played a factor.Hazelene says

At first listen, recalling me of the tripped-out atmospheric grooves of early Rain Parade, Hazelene showcases a distinctive sensitivity for meticulously detailed and compelling arrangements, deftly keeping things balanced between slight abrasion and breezy expanse, bittersweet melodicism and emotional depth.

Punctuated by hypnotic drum patterns, a hazy and subtly droning distorted tapestry glides placidly, rippled by a mesmerizing interplay between crystal clear glistening, reverberating guitar swells, lumpy bass throbs, and the lilting sooth of vibrant airy vocals, cloaked in high wailing and anxious melancholic twangy edges, layering thoughtful streaming breaths, in order to make things right again.

The DIY Official Video begins along a grey seashore but quickly shifts to a dreamy lighthouse under mostly sunny skies. Natural driftwood sculptures, handwriting in the sand, and introspective waters shuffle with Hazelene, who appears to be stuck in a ghostly realm. Then, the vision spins, and after a stairway ascension, she finds herself at the top of the hillside with the sun hovering beautifully along the horizon.

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