…you remind me, FRENCH FOR RABBITS – The Dark Arts

French for Rabbits – The Dark Arts is available at Bandcamp, Apple Music.

by Walter Price

If 2020 and all of its chaotic twists and turns proved one thing, it would be the uncontrollable soul searching many found themselves experiencing. And just ahead of releasing their third LP, New Zealand’s purveyors of cinematic sad songs, French for Rabbits, released a somber beauty, “The Dark Arts”, that looks at the realities of keepsakes. Whatever that may mean to each individual.

In a Bandcamp post vocalist/songwriter Brooke Singer shares, “The Dark Arts is a song filled with dusty corners – it’s also a bridge between the old and the new. Our first single from our third album which is due out next year. It looks back for a little moment before we move forward.

“It’s a nod to memories and objects – so here’s to keeping those old birthday cards from your Gran, dog-eared books, and that broken hard-drive with those photos from 2012!”

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The dark arts of preservation,
the mottled collection of displacement.
To love them is to know how it feels to be lost and to be left.
You know, you remind me of a boy I once knew?

Days comes and it all feels so different, it’s like dust in my hair.
Day comes and I walk outside and back, so dissatisfied.
Day comes and it’s all so clear to me – it’s so dear to me.
When day comes – that I will be standing here mending all of it.

The dark arts of preservation,
The mottled collection of displacement.
To love them is to know how it feels to be lost and to be left.
You know? you remind me of a boy I once knew.

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Singer’s unenviable knack for whispery storytelling shines bright in this song’s dark sincerity. In looking back, more often than not, one can find hope and the will to forge ahead. And moving forward with a sense of understanding the importance of the past, is a healthy way to survive.

And you can now stream this stunner as well as the shadowy film, also directed by Brooke Singer, now at the GTC.

THE DARK ARTS

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“New Zealand’s French for Rabbits have established themselves as a world-class act with seven international tours under their belt and festival appearances from Iceland to Austin. Fronted by the delicately voiced Brooke Singer, their emotionally intelligent music is evocative of land and sea, awash with glistening layers, and propelled along by the intricate instrumentation of guitarist John Fitzgerald, drummer Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa, and multi-instrumentalists Ben Lemi and Penelope Esplin.” – band bio

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