Hanalei is the project of singer/songwriter Brian Moss, and his upcoming album Black Snow features contributions from members of The Velvet Teen, Daikon, Great Apes, and more, as well as drum engineering and mastering by Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, etc). (The production, mixing, and bulk of the recording was done by Brian himself at home.) The record comes out March 12 via A-F Records, and we're now premiering its lead single "Screen Echoes," which is a cool dose of breezy indie rock that Weakerthans fans will probably dig. Here's what Brian says about that song and the record overall:
I keep pinching myself to make sure I’m alive. Have we all been unknowingly transported into some cruel alternate universe where what was once confined to imagination has become reality? As I write this, California is burning and a pandemic is ravaging the globe. Police are murdering innocent people of color at-will, domestic terrorism is being thinly veiled as patriotism, facts and logic are ignored, a cartoonish, malevolent blob is nearing totalitarian control, and love is lost. This can’t be real.
I began writing Black Snow roughly two years ago after finding out my wife was pregnant. The process served as a means of coping with the relentless anxiety and bouts of depression that polluted my expected joy. How could I bring a child into a world on the verge of collapse?
The record is a non-linear, fictional collage, set in the not-so-distant future, following the destruction of our climate and the subsequent disintegration of modern society. The songs are primarily narrated from varying first person perspectives: the last standing bristlecone pine, a virus unearthed by fracking (this one was written a year before Covid hit and obviously feels eerily relevant now), the collective voice of animals subjected to human wrath, an estranged lover in a drought-parched Northern Californian landscape, a post-apocalyptic traveler who unearths a working smartphone, the self-serving climate change denier, a father and son choosing optimism and action over apathy and surrender, and so forth. Consider this a warning. Fiction is finding its way from far-flung to here and now.
[...] "Screen Echoes" is set post-climate collapse and narrated from the perspective of a desperate traveler pushing through the barren and hostile landscape of what was once the American West. In a world now devoid of personal technological devices and leisure, a working smartphone is discovered, providing a window into the wonders, fixations, and grave errors of the past.