Henry Hank Builds Dreamless Darkpop in Single “Body Solo”
By Sarai Warner
Photo by Ash Dye
Henry Hank’s new single release “Body Solo” splits the idea of the central self cleanly apart to document a messy, curious war waged between body and mind. A steady swing of synth patterns and toneless delay beeps build a switchboard of paranoia and paint a dark sleeplessness. In a lilt that mirrors the exhaustion of this fight, Hank broods with a slothlike reverb, “Cut my hair, become pristine / Like pruning to let flowers creep in / Change myself through seasons, thinking / I’ll never let my body turn to sleeping.” Despite the hypnotic lull of the track, spikes of electronic snare slam and silvery hi-hat keep the listener present to the combat, until inevitable submission to the mechanical synth loop forms the outro.
Darkpop is a step into a deeper sonic and self honesty for songwriter and producer of the Henry Hank solo project, Henry Jordan Smith, whose first EP The Weight of Eternal Self Love utilized a lighter trance dreampop flair. Despite the many layers that build the track’s electronic hum, there is a certain clarity to the witching production of “Body Solo”, swapping dreamy atmospherics for a richer sound that conjures an underground vault where all bets are off and all versions of the self are welcome. Not only does this heavier form lend itself to the thematics of the track, its elemental darkness holds a necessary communion with reality and fantasy to find truths that take time to find, and accept. Smith reflects, “I’ve been pushing myself to produce the kind of music I was wanting to produce with my 2018 EP. I held back a lot then, because although I had a lot of anger and weirdness that I wanted to examine, I wasn’t really ready to be that intense in front of other people. I’ve become a lot less afraid of being angry, broody, or intense, and embracing the honesty of early synth pop/post-punk has helped a lot in that regard. Working with darker synth tones and fuller bass also feels transportational, because I don’t hear those sounds when I’m just walking around in my life, in nature. They take me to a different reality, where I can be as passionate and freaked out as I want.”
Accompanying the restless track is a mesmeric music video (dir. Tony Grayson) featuring bright clementine-clad beings interacting in unsettling symbiosis. With a woodland backdrop, Smith performs as one of the beings, while choreographer Amanda Maraist wraps around him, seeming parts tender and parasitic. But despite Smith’s self-described vision of “Body Solo” narrating a battle between the mind and its “evil” twin, body, he reveals that the latter isn’t necessarily sinister. He explains, “When I wrote this song around 2017, I was beginning to embrace the beauty of my transness, and I was working on reconciling with my body after misdirecting so much hatred towards it. In order to reconcile with my body, I engaged with the idea that ‘Yeah, maybe the body and mind aren't working together,’ but from a playful angle, rather than an angry one. Like, what if the body isn’t some sinister being, but more like a mischievous, cartoonish ‘evil twin’? When the mind’s not looking, does the body sneak off, taste freedom, and want more? How can these entities work together in a way that honors the agency of each?”
There is a particular moment that caught me in the music video, as one being runs their fingers down the spine of the other, before yielding to a shot of the two apart, dancing independently. Such contrast highlights the delicate and tricky nature of the body and mind, and how they clash, learn and dream with each other. Smith explains, “For much of the video, Amanda and I are in opposition, dissonant, fighting. Neither of us is truly evil, we are just exploring our agency independent of each other. But things feel really euphoric when we finally reset, come together again, and care for each other, even if we aren’t perfectly congruent.” “Body Solo” is an exciting foray by Henry Hank into infinite worlds of play, chaos, and care through a moody and mysterious sonic experience.
Keep up with Henry Hank’s music and photography via his website, and listen here and here.