The Singles Jukebox

Suggested by John, a piece of folk yearning for a slower pace…

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John S. Quinn-Puerta: Tell me truly, what is your dream? I find myself sitting in a field. I find my friends and family among me. There are birds flying nearby, some landing and playing in the field. A hawk flies over, but the songbirds don’t hide. They continue singing. Someone is cooking over an open fire or in a dug pit of coals. A guitar is playing. We are singing. We are sharing. The smell of the food wafts over us. I am no longer sitting but standing, playing my upright bass. The people I love are with me. They are dancing. They feel next to me. We grow tired over and overthinking. In June of this year, a new opportunity came my way. After a year and a half of struggling with a commute, working among petty people for a hundred-year-old company entrenched in the 20th century, spending money on food I could make at home with a little more time, lying to myself and saying I was fine, I found a fully remote opportunity willing to wait until August for me to join. I would have boundaries again. And I have had boundaries again. And I have had time for hobbies again. And I could remember who I am and who I used to be once again. Daydream dies slow. I saw Haley Heynderickx opening for one of my favorite bands, on a night I was already primed for a close encounter with something sublime. She stood on stage, just her and a guitar, and sang, and picked, and filled the room with just herself and her instrument. She made one acoustic guitar sound like a full band and still sang in her mournful alto. She captured this tension I’ve felt for years. I was so enraptured that I felt like I could hear her strings straining against their tuning pegs, moments away from snapping. On “Foxglove”, she does the same thing. She takes this pushing rhythm and makes it meditative. She conjures her daydream and makes it hers. She acknowledges the barriers and the tensions that keep it dying but lets you know it’s dying slowly. It’s still there. It’s fading, but you can still chase it. It goes away like the whisper of a perfectly bowed string, echoing through soft air. Dies slow, dies slow, dies slow, dies slow.
[10]

Dorian Sinclair: “Foxglove” has a timeless quality to it; the echoey fingerstyle guitar, Heynderickx’s warble, and the fragmentary lyrics all feel like they could have as easily been recorded in the 1970s as this year. I just wish that the ending wasn’t quite so abrupt — Heynderickx is singing about daydreams dying slow, but I feel like I’m jolted awake from this one.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: The childish daydreams of a musical career die as quickly as foxglove if watered from overhead. Haley, of course, does not have this problem.
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Julian Axelrod: In a year where even the chillest bands have names like Skullcrusher and Being Dead, nobody would begrudge Heynderickx for not going as hard as her predecessors Jimi or Future. And sure, “Foxglove” isn’t a massive departure from the folk pop sound she established on 2018’s I Need to Start a Garden, which was defined by delicate acoustics and aggressive emotions. But the guitar line that twists through this single is the catchiest and most forceful riff she’s produced to date, tapping into an authentic Americana sound that’s refreshing in an era where any artist who can afford a pedal steel player is considered country. It feels like a true duet between the instrument and its player, with the guitar subsiding for her verses and returning to fill in the words she can’t bear to sing. The most thrilling moments are the choruses where everything drops out, like the three-pace count before a showdown between Haley and her discarded daydreams. When that guitar comes back in, you don’t think about her alongside her namesakes or contemporaries. It’s just Haley Heynderickx and the vast horizon.
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The songs on Haley Heynderickx’s first album crackled with a certain specificity, the lived-in detail of an old apartment; here on her return, a half-decade on, she is instead fuzzy in her images, sketching a nature scene with just a few well-chosen phrases, swooning with the cello and double bass. She acknowledges the daydream as she sings it; I can’t help but reach for more stable points to hang to here, but in practice even the indistinct is joyful. 
[7]

Isabel Cole: A little mannered, but despite the fact that there are few things I relate to less than wanting to escape city life, when I’m listening I do briefly wish I were sitting with my back against a tree, spreading my legs out on the sun-dappled grass.
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Ian Mathers: I used to go to a smallish folk festival with my family every summer when I was a kid. Even when I first went it had (like a lot of folk festivals) moved away from any sort of genre purity and towards a bit of “the kind of music do boomers who would go to a folk festival would like.” On the basis of the deftly strummed, liltingly sung “Foxglove,” Haley Heynderickx could have been one of the acts there that actually made me go “oh, I get why people would care enough about folk to have a whole festival full of it.”
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Jel Bugle: It’s kind of like old folk records you’ll find in the charity shop filtering through into modern times. Does this make me feel anti-retro? I’m not sure, new music is always produced from the weight of history. This song is pretty, but pretty like an art gallery or Kew Gardens or something, I’d be inclined to have a quick look around, but a big part of me craves sounds more exciting than nourishing/calming. 
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Katherine St. Asaph: Pleasant, unbothered folk. My musical taste has drifted a little away from this since the 2000s; wish I could transport it back.
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