[Cover photo credit to Fernando Rodriguez]

The Columbus, OH-based Indie Folk act Hello Emerson has announced To Keep Him Here, their latest LP, due out March 29th via Anyway Records.

A concept album telling the story of “a serious and sudden accident” suffered by primary singer-songwriter Sam Emerson Bodary’s father, the record is interspersed with audio from an interview conducted with NPR’s StoryCorps about the incident and its aftermath. Alongside the album announcement, the group have shared the album’s first two tracks, “‘It was twelve-ten’” and “Tupperware for Glass.”

While “‘twelve-ten’” serves as an introductory interlude using audio of Bodary’s father setting the stage for his accident, “Tupperware for Glass” kicks off the album. The track also introduces the record’s themes of “mortality and resilience.”

Bodary shares:

This is the thesis statement of the album. All of my favorite music and literature boils down to this. How will we grow from this? In spite of this? Because of this? The whole point is our attempt to make sense of the world around us.

A collaborative act inspired by the local artistic community of Hello Emerson’s home base of Columbus, Ohio, their 2020 sophomore album, How to Cook Everything featured contributions from 50 local musicians.

The EP To Keep Him Here takes on a set of darker themes. The record delves into the “chaos and confusion” that followed a serious accident suffered by Bodary’s father which landed him in the ICU for nine days. The album was tracked live and is “a record of hope and fear”, but also one that “finds beauty in the kind of compassion which can only arise from disorder.”