Lia Ices Shares New Song "Hymn," First New Music In 6 Years

LIA ICES RELEASES NEW SINGLE “HYMN” OUT TODAY! https://ffm.to/hymn

Photo Credit: Renee Friedrich

Today singer-songwriter Lia Ices releases a gorgeous and ethereal new single “Hymn,” her first bit of new music in 6 years. Lia says, “‘Hymn’ touches on my relationship with “the muse”, or spirituality, or love — how I receive inspiration and give it back via the magic and mystery of the creative process, exposing both my introverted and extroverted self to the listener— which both exist as highly charged opposites in my art and personality. My good friend and director, Conor Hagen shot the accompanying video over the course of 9 months on super 8 film, while my band and I played shows up and down California and the pacific northwest last year. Playing music with others and for others is a ritual, there is an alchemy between band members, between audience and performer, between filmmaker and subject that is so powerful and humanly enriching and I am so grateful to have captured those moments. I realize now more than ever, that the magic of performance with the gift of music is my life source. And with the future of live shows being so unknown, this song and video are a bittersweet celebration of it all and a kind of intention setting of what I’ll be ready to return to.”  The single is out via Lia’s own Natural Music. “Making music is an intimate process for me,” Lia says, “I created Natural Music as a container to make the music I want to make, and to reveal it to the world in my own personal way. It's empowering to connect more directly and build a community around the making and releasing of art — which, after more than ten years in the business, has been the most powerful aspect of making albums." Watch the video for “Hymn” here:

Listen to “Hymn” HERE. Lia Ices has released 3 critically acclaimed albums - 2008’s Necima (Rare Book Room) followed by Grown Unknown (Jagjaguwar Records) in 2011, and then the simply titled Ices in 2014, also on Jagjaguwar Records. Her music has been covered from Vogue to Pitchfork to The New York Times and has been heard on HBO’s GIRLS, Gray’s Anatomy, and Oliva Wild’s Booksmart.  In 2015 she married wine-maker Andrew Mariani and relocated from Brooklyn to Sonoma County.    “Hymn” is Ices’ first California output and was written at her home on Moon Mountain in Sonoma, while Ices was pregnant with her first child. She and her band recorded the track in Los Angeles with producer JR White (Girls, Tobias Jesso Jr), and it was mixed by Chris Coady (Beach House, Amen Dunes ) at Sunset Sound, Los Angeles. “Hymn” also marks a return to the piano, and Lia further states, “Coming to California and living on the mountain and being in nature, and then starting to grow a human, I wanted to make something without having any ulterior motives other than letting what naturally happens, happen.” “Hymn” also marks a return to the piano, and Lia further states, “Coming to California and living on the mountain and being in nature, and then starting to grow a human, I wanted to make something without having any ulterior motives other than letting what naturally happens, happen.” Past praise for Lia Ices "Many new songs on Grown Unknown begin with the same ghostly melancholy of fellow nymph-rock poster girls such as Cat Power and Scout Niblett but, halfway through, transform without warning into warm, Stevie Nicks–like jams, which wouldn’t seem out of place on the soundtrack to a Wes Anderson film." Vogue "The key asset on Grown Unknown is her impressively supple voice, which can spiral up into a giddy falsetto and fall crashing to the floor in dolorous rumination within a heartbeat" Pitchfork "’Love Is Won’ (is a) simmering ballad that set Ices' stunning if cryptic vocals against a backdrop of elegant electric organ and spare drums, the track was used to devastating effect over the end credits in the first season of Girls. Ices finds Lia Ices in a more experimental mode, as she makes her rhythms first and builds her songs in light layers atop the beats. ‘Tell Me’ and the percolating ‘Higher’ capture an ebullience that brings to mind Paul Simon's Graceland or Panda Bear's Person Pitch." NPR "Ices seems to be playing on her own field and setting up her own rules. There is always an air  of mystery and wisdom in her pieces. This album (Ices) is a leap in a different direction but like her past work it possesses its own uniquely exotic gifts."  ABC News “Ices, Lia's follow-up to 2011's Grown Unknown release is nothing short of a massive accomplishment in experimental folk music that pays off in the most surprising ways...Lia's entrancing and absorbing vocal style help keep you firmly placed in her grasp managing to convey a message through sound rather than words.”  PopMatters

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