Lamplight

Lamplight, the musical project of Roanoke, VA and Brooklyn, NY-based artist Ian Hatcher-Williams, today has shared his enchanting new single “House Rules,” the latest preview of his self-titled debut LP out March 8th, 2024, via Western Vinyl. A contemplation on grief and one’s relationships with those who have passed, “House Rules” examines how loss can illuminate the futility of animosity. “Death has always been a deafening reminder that the anger and resentment we carry with us isn't worth the weight it bears,” Hatcher-Wiliams explains of the track. “This song came in the form of a mantra to myself, spilling out as I was grieving just days before the recording session, thinking the record might get canned. Love as many as you can, and forgive the rest. As we all hurtle to our end, love is all there is time for.” Lamplight, produced by Kevin Copeland (Lightning Bug), can now be pre-ordered HERE.

In the sway of a rural breeze, Hatcher-Williams’ vocals soothe and enchant the listener on Lamplight, which recounts his odyssey from a child raised in a Virginia cult, to a burned out tech worker in New York, and then back to Virginia, happily married to his childhood friend. Throughout the album, he explores identity as it relates to where a person is from and evolves with where they live, and how that facet of self is further compounded by the amount of agency one has over where they call home. To some extent, Lamplight is about learning when to take the reins, and when to let go—discovering what parts of yourself should be pruned, so new branches can grow.  

Though the album has moments that hint at the antique lace and creaking floorboards of traditional folk, Lamplight skews modern, in part thanks to Copeland's deft production. Hatcher-Williams met Copeland while living in Brooklyn, and as they got to know each other, he revealed that he’d spent years playing in bands before his career took over his life. Copeland's encouragement, in tandem with the concurrent changes in Hatcher-Williams’ career and domestic life, gave him the confidence to revisit this part of himself that felt unfinished.

Much like a dream, these songs feel like rooms you recognize but can’t quite place, fragments of memories that you can’t pin down. There’s love but also panic attacks, realizations and reckonings, questionings alongside resignations, and confrontation as well as avoidance. By the end of the album, you get the sense that Hatcher-Williams has learned that he's not the dogma that over-promised and under-delivered, and he's not the youthful ambition that led him to the brink of self-destruction. He's a soft machine with limitations, improvising and adapting, seeking balance and a sense of place, just like everyone else.