A HAWK AND A HACKSAW - VOLUME 8 - LIMITED EDITION GREEN VINYL LP - PRE ORDER OUT 5TH FEBRUARY 2027

THIS IS A PRE ORDER SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON THE 5TH FEBRUARY 2027

LIMITED EDITION GREEN VINYL LP

Inspired by folk music traditions which transcended both borders and language, Jeremy Barnes (of Neutral Milk Hotel) formed A Hawk and a Hacksaw in 2002. The project truly blossomed when Barnes met his partner in music and life, Heather Trost in 2004. The couple went on to make seven albums in which they’ve explored their ardour for music from Northern Romania through the Balkans to Turkey.

The couple had been taking a break from A Hawk and a Hacksaw over the last few years to work on other projects. However, as Jeremy notes: “A couple things happened in 2026 that made me want to document what we have been doing more formally and to go out and tour again”. Heather adds: “After all the war and atrocities that have been happening in Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran it felt we needed to say something through our music”The result is Volume 8, their first release for Rocket Recordings, and an album which takes an uplifting universality of spirit and marries it to a cathartic rawness, flourishing in an electrifying celebratory passion free of both time and place.The invigorating, drone-inflected ‘Gayda’, to name but one, sees a Turkish bagpipe melody arranged for distorted violin and tapan drum, resulting in a collision of celebratory joy and transcendent noise.Bookending the album are two tracks which sum up the spiritually altruistic vision of Volume 8. The opening song ‘Beloved’ forms a kind of call to arms, whilst the closer ‘Yes, We Love You’ operates as both as a statement of intent and as a kind of answer song in kind to the 1978 Lebanese pop hit ‘Do You Love Me’ by the Bendaly Family. “We love that song, and when I am hearing it I’m hearing someone ask a much broader question, not a request for romantic love, but for broader, universal love and acknowledgement.” says Jeremy. Hence to paraphrase a spiritual leader past; if there is a method to a Hawk and a Hacksaw’s Volume 8, its foundation is love.

Tracklisting: