Hip Hatchet is the songwriting moniker of Philippe Bronchtein, a man who calls Portland, Oregon home and who is gearing up to release his fourth studio album. Like the way in which he hides behind his stage name, Philippe has spent a long time hanging around in the background, featured as keyboardist in the band Quiet Life. As a solo artist, his music is texturally subtle, but lyrically is where he comes out to shine, and nowhere is that more evident than on his upcoming new album ‘Hold You Like A Harness’. Still, that’s not to say the music is unimportant, and backed by Scott Davis (Hayes Carll) on guitar, Nathan Crockett (Horse Feathers) on violin, and Ty Bailie (Widower) on B3 and piano, we are treated to a wonderful soundscape of folk, country, and Americana, including the chipper western swing of ‘Father Redemption’ and the bluegrass hints of ‘Man of God’.
Hip Hatchet is a man of many travels, and his drifting from Montreal to Vermont to New Jersey and back to Portland, provides his music a library of life experiences to inform his thoughtful musings on life and love. The gentle folky blues of lead single ‘Coward’s Luck’ is a song full of metaphors for loneliness and dissatisfaction, while the sweet country/folk tune ‘Travel Map’ hones in on Philippe’s specific experiences trying to connect with a girl to counteract the loneliness he feels. The atmospheric, mellow ‘David’s Wolves’ continues this narrative with a series of vignettes regarding the friends he’s made in various places, from the New Orleans girl he slept with; the nearby man he got drunk with; David, the owner of the wolves; and all his companions he joins in smoking and drinking with. “We shave off a few years, over cigarettes and beers, we believe some little lies, about the women we’ve held near,” he sings, perhaps inadvertently describing the lives of so many of us.
Hip Hatchet relates much of the melancholy on this record to the women in his life. ‘Ladies Night’ uses wailing pedal steel to fill the senses as he reaches out to a girl he wants to stay awhile, while the title track fashions itself as a stream of consciousness directed at a woman he’s in a casual relationship with, “Man I can’t commit for shit, but damn can I act and pretend.” Despite this, we can feel the jealousy he has for the woman seeing other people practically emanating from the speakers, and we see love motivate him to head to Tacoma in ‘Tacoma Bound’. Meanwhile, ‘Cars Look Like Crying’ is a dark exploration of love and warfare in Oregon, and ‘Small Bird’ is a poetic slice of melodic Americana that dwells on the loves he has left behind in various cities, something of an anthem for this eternal traveller.
Hip Hatchet turns to the piano for ‘Words of Wisdom’, a song that stands out somewhat from the rest. Once again he is lying beside a woman, and we are caught in his emotions as he processes this singular moment in time, but instead of highlighting the complex relationships and feelings connected with that person and that place, ‘Words of Wisdom’ carefully details Philippe perhaps falling in love, quietly observing and listening to the woman entailed. They are lying out in the sun, and he considers her body and the things she says, holding his breath as if trying to hold onto the moment forever. Understated and yet curiously all-encompassing, it is one of the best songs on the record.
‘Hold You Like A Harness’ is a very thoughtful, melancholic and poetic album rooted in folk and Americana and the heart of a traveling man. It is due for release in the UK and Ireland on September 4 (it hit stores in the US on April 14), and Hip Hatchet will be touring on this side of the Atlantic during September and October. See full dates at his website.
Originally posted here.
