The debut album from singer/songwriter Courtney Hartman, Ready Reckoner opens with the understated yet undeniable glory of “Hollow,” a track whose title traces back to her recent fascination with the concept of resonance. “The definition is perfect: ‘a resounding from the sides of a hollow instrument of music; a sound returned,’” says Hartman, who wrote “Hollow” while walking the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile pilgrimage route across Spain. “This whole record comes from a hollowing-out within myself—from being quiet and learning to listen again, allowing space for a resonance.”
Born from purposeful self-examination, Ready Reckoner finds Hartman taking the helm as producer transforming her most private ruminations into songs both bracingly intimate and magnificently vast. In that process, the Loveland, Colorado-based artist worked in collaboration with co-producer Shahzad Ismaily (a composer and multi-instrumentalist known for his work with Lou Reed and Tom Waits) and assembled a close-knit community of musicians, including a number of her friends as well as renowned guitarist Bill Frisell. Recorded mainly at Figure8 in Brooklyn and mixed by Tucker Martine (Neko Case, My Morning Jacket), Ready Reckoner unfolds in extraordinarily detailed textures, a nuanced yet wholly unpredictable sound equally given to moments of hushed simplicity, improvisatory freedom, and flashes of symphonic splendor.
Companion has fought hard for happiness. At just 23-years-old, identical twin sisters Sophia and Jo had faced a decade of darkness. Then they built lighthouses.
Companion’s debut album, Second Day of Spring, is a towering beacon: a victorious indie-folk record that further introduces two brilliant songwriters who are also mesmerizing singers, using voices that feel light and weighted gazes that see clearly to offer the rest of us comfort in treacherous corners.
“A lot of this album is rooted in healing from familial hurt,” says Sophia. “There are songs about marriage and healing from mistrust. Family ties that have been broken.”
Hope cracks through early songs on the album, like grass growing in sidewalks, before sprawling out into lush meadows by the end of the record. Acoustic guitar is a constant companion for the twins’ natural harmonies, joined at turns by standout guests ranging from viola to organelle to trumpet to piano.
Sophia and Jo were homeschooled and raised on about nine farmland acres just outside of Norman, Oklahoma. Their lives changed abruptly at 13, when their father, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, took his own life. “I am not afraid of telling people that my dad killed himself,” explains Sophia, calmly.
“Mental health is such an undervalued issue that’s not talked about enough – so we talk about it through our writing.” The loss pushed the girls to write. “I started playing guitar at 14, and we started writing together at 14 or 15,” Jo says. “It came pretty naturally, but as siblings, there was friction.” The tension made the songs even better.