Hanami Family - Lunar Ticks (2018)

The first notes of Lunar Ticks hit like the sweet nostalgia of summer. There’s a jingle jangle of love song, ancient fable and a lyrical lament and celebration of change. The song ‘White Heron in the Rushes’ is as catchy as the lyrics promise it will be, a tasting table of Dick Dale riffs blended with show tune precision.

Keeley and John have that rare connection – voices that seem to have complemented each other for decades, centuries even – since the time of gypsies and giants. Like a polaroid you can’t place your finger on; it makes me want to weep and dance on the table at the same time.

As the third song ‘Love is Chaos’ seeps through, we are clearly under the spell of the witching hour cast by Keeley’s voice. Some siren song luring sailors to their death. Love is chaos, but these carefully refined notes are not. The sound is as rich and full as a bursting heart, and there’s a hint of early folk psychedelia flaming at the edges. The motifs of moonlight and turning tides wash through, an ode to womanhood and the fulfilling of destiny.

The signature sound of Higher Lover comes fourth, a song that brings a chorus of friendship, frivolous fun and for anyone who has seen the video – fuzzy warmth. Yet, nothing this duo do sits on the surface, there is a depth that calls on decades of work, musical passion, and a culmination of experience to have gotten to this point.

Dig makes me homesick for a place I never knew, which I think is the whole point. Out Here With Us moves in cultish fashion, and I’m not joking when I say I would raise my hand to join, following the ghostly pied piper sounds through fog and thickness. Over the Mountains of Madness captures the best of a sound stripped back to its beautiful bones. The crescendo hits with Space Lullaby; we can all gather round the fire for this one.

Lunar Ticks is a trip – a place of whispered fairy-tales beneath the covers, red flames swallowing stars, bewitched girls running barefoot through the forest, and it reminds me that we can all let our hair swing loose and scream into the dawn that yes, after listening to this – we all feel better.

Tracklist:
01. Hanami Family - White Heron in the Rushes
02. Hanami Family - The Surprise Inside
03. Hanami Family - Love Is Chaos
04. Hanami Family - Higher Lover
05. Hanami Family - Dig
06. Hanami Family - Out Here with Us
07. Hanami Family - Over the Mountains of Madness
08. Hanami Family - Space Lullaby