Big Stir Records is thrilled to welcome HUNGRYTOWN to our roster at the dawn of a new year, with a new single that's beguilingly appropriate in title and tone: “Another Year”, the first track from the Vermont indie-folk-pop duo's forthcoming album.

“Another Year” is both an apt introduction to the HUNGRYTOWN sound – a timelessly fresh spin on folk rock, sunshine pop and psychedelia-tinged indie rock – and the album to come in late spring of 2024. The duo of singer/guitarist REBECCA HALL and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist KEN ANDERSON are as of this writing (and nearly constantly) on the road in the US and abroad, enchanting fans with the songs of their three previous albums and the newer compositions that have been captured on the forthcoming CIRCUS FOR SALE. Their critically-acclaimed approach is a true artistic hybrid, able to hold Celtic and Americana, ballads and psychedelia, sunshine and darkness, joy and despair not only within the same album, but within the same song. They present it with remarkable, plaintive directness as a live duo, while their studio work adorns the melodies with subtle layers of instrumentation that lend the music a captivating sense of time and place: echoes of the traditions that feed them and sounds out of times completely unknown, brimming with familiarity and mystery alike.

So it is on “Another Year,” as Rebecca explains. “It's an ode to the changing seasons, inspired by the magical melancholy of late 1960s psychedelia. This is the softer side of psych, with poetic lyrics, plenty of references to the natural world, and an abundance of minor chords.” She sees the sound as a reflection of the song's thematic core: “There is beauty in this world, but the innocent '60s sensibility has been replaced by an uneasiness -- a sense of some apocalyptic threat lurking just outside the pleasant frame.”

As with many Hungrytown compositions, “Another Year” started with the simplest of observational inspirations. “From our porch in the summertime it is sometimes hard to tell where the fireflies end and the stars begin; we used that imagery to begin describing the changing seasons in Vermont,” says Hall. But the underlying sense of slowly encroaching dread is reflected in the arrangement as well. The song is driven along by a distorted Hammond organ riff that is always threatening to come unhinged, contrasted with ethereal female vocals. The combined effect is unflinchingly honest in more ways than one: it's pastoral but not idyllic, and its bravery lies in its insistence on finding beauty even in an August sun “worn right through and fraying at the seams” and the predatory ice of winter. You can hear it loud and clear in all its eerie, lovely glory on “Another Year”... and throughout the band's new album.

And so we welcome 2024, and with it, HUNGRYTOWN: a band for all its seasons. There is much more to come from them, and we at Big Stir Records can't wait to share it with you.