[Cover photo credit to Kelsey Sucena]
Country-Americana project The Belle Curves has released their newest track “Check Engine Light” today, on May 27th, 2022. The single sets the tone for their forthcoming studio album, Watershed, which is slated for release on June 24, 2022. The track has been accompanied by an animated video.
The Belle Curves is the solo project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Delaney Hafener, With “Check Engine Light,” Hafener tells the story of her travels across the United States from coast to coast, which carries connections about “what it means to be an American”.
Hafener says:
“This song is actually a true story, word for word. In 2019, my partner and I took a road trip across the country in my little 2004 Pontiac Vibe. There was hardly enough room for everything we packed and the check engine light came on on the third day or so as we were leaving North Carolina. When we got down to New Orleans, a nice man working at an AutoZone told us not to worry about it so we didn’t. We took this little car across Texas then up to San Francisco and made a bee-line back across the plains to be back at their mom’s place in North Carolina in time for Thanksgiving. The whole time we were on the road I just wished we had more space.
I ended up finally buying a conversion van, a 2002 GMC Savana, in spring of 2021. We accidentally camped in Joshua Tree Veteran’s Day weekend and I think about half the population of LA was also there that weekend. That’s what the ‘Instagram girls’ line is about.
We stumbled across three or four different photoshoots while we were there. As we were driving, we were listening to a book called ‘American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America’ and it was so fascinating to see the cultural landscapes shift in line with the book’s perspective of this continent’s complicated and often violent history. So much of what it means to be an American, and how fragmented and culturally diverse a country it truly is, came into focus for me in those 6 weeks.”
