Listen to Shannon Hawley on Spotify
Shannon Hawley’s second studio album STARTHROWERS is a memoir in song with anthemic choruses paying homage to caretakers who did the brave and often overlooked task of loving.
She sings certain phrases with a haunting knowing, the way the word ocean rolls out of her mouth, the sometimes lulling but mostly visceral waves. And the way she comes down on the word bones reminds us of what we are made of - those structures that are always breaking down while they are building. The songs touch on the bittersweetness of life and death and the ones who had to grieve to know what they loved. The honey collector’s heartaches and offerings. Deeply rooted in New Jersey, she wrote the songs while on an epic odyssey from her hometown through Brooklyn, Ithaca, Argentina, Vermont, Los Angeles, California, Costa Rica and then back home again while the world collapsed in on itself and attempts to learn its lessons. The heroine’s journey - where you come home to yourself changed and expanded more than you thought possible - connected through time and space to the ancestors and the earth, the cosmos and the body, and ultimately the new world, ready to heal it and walk each other home.
Her last album “a different kind of progress” with a understated sound and intimate voice was influenced by Rumi, Rilke, Mary Oliver, and Tagore. This time she is drawing mostly from her own life and the lives of her ancestors. She references the deep grief of losing her father at a young age and being the oldest of 5 daughters in Starthrowers . Then there are the detailed slices of life from her relatives and beloved women who died young or were birthing babies during wartime, who worked in poisonous factories, or were widowed and left with 5 girls to raise, who grew up with lifelessness around them and looked to the water - the ocean, the river, ALL of them Love Warriors, all of them Starthrowers. These women were the like mycelium network - the almost invisible threads connecting and sharing resources to all of the tall trees. They were like the murmuration - each bird paying close attention - its unwilting devotion - to the seven birds around them - changing direction of the entire flock, keeping them safe, changing the sky.
Sparse crashing guitars, layered electronic accents nodding to EDM influenced heavily by her friend, collaborator and producer, Hector Gundlach (Nekter Gun), her clear voice and and the bold choruses represent her journey and seem to embody it all.
“Obsessed with magic and spells I attempted to set myself free with these prayer songs. Reclaiming my body as a site of liberation - my throat the bridge between what was brewing in the darkness and the light within me and the mysteries and miracles that happened before me, and are happening all around me. That are me. My voice, my songs - the only way out”
She does it in all her work. “The deep deep work of remembering who we are and what we came here to do. I vow to leave a legacy of generational healing. To say this is a passion project is an understatement. The sacrifices of creating, writing, singing, and seeing this through to fruition are my life’s work.”
