Hataałii Releases ‘Singing Into Darkness (Expanded Edition)’ Nov 01, 2023
Today, singer-songwriter Hataałii releases Singing Into Darkness (Expanded Edition) revisiting his Dangerbird Records debut album with an expanded tracklisting that includes 3 new tracks from the original sessions and demos from the winter of 2022. On November 2nd, a live session with Hataałii will premiere on the Grammy.com performance series Global Spin in celebration of the global music community and Native American Heritage Month.
With Singing Into Darkness, Hataałii’s intuition sharpens into a visceral and inquisitive, yet artfully obfuscated, sense of focus — a special rock songwriting talent challenging himself to excel within the form. “The demos were recorded in Window Rock in my dad’s shed behind the cornfield during Christmas break,” Hataałii said. “I was still 18 at the time. All songs from the entire album were recorded in the span of a week because it was the only time I had with a drum kit. It was freezing in that shed, so much that I could see my own breath while I was recording,” Hataałii said.
Listen to Singing Into Darkness (Expanded Edition) HERE
Throughout, Hataałii serves up the heavy themes of these jangly garage rock and darkly gothic folk songs with coy subversion. Whether investigating the sting of grief and the random cruelties of life (“Story Of Francisco”), Navajo suffering and the unsatisfactory salve of historical context (the Velvets-cribbing “For Liquor”), or the unbearable dynamic between tourists and residents of the reservation (the album-closing epic “Double Doors”), it quickly becomes clear that Hataałii has a sophisticated understanding of the imagistic language and mythological underpinnings of the best rock and roll music.
Raised in Window Rock, AZ, the capital of Navajo Nation, 20-year-old Hataałii’s (pronounced: Hah-toth-lee) music has been praised by Aquarium Drunkard as “weirdly genreless and out-of-time, yet constantly reaching for some sort of cosmic agency,” while FLOOD praises his penchant for “tapping into Bob Dylan’s most unpredictable vocal zones.” Indie hero Mac DeMarco is not only an inspiration but a fan, having shouted Hataałii out during a recent podcast interview.
Hataałii began self-releasing his music as a teenager, beginning with 2019’s Banana Boy, the fruit of a personal challenge to write a song every day. Word-of-mouth and online interest swelled, and he followed Banana Boy with 2020’s Painting Portraits — which added shoegaze and bossa nova to his sonic arsenal — and followed that with 2021’s Hataałii. Earlier this spring, he shared COMPLETELY!!! personal, a lo-fi collection that serves as evidence of his restless creative streak.
Hataałii
Singing Into Darkness (Expanded Edition)
Tracklist:
1 – Midnight Soldier
2 – Laugh Out Loud
3 – For Liquor
4 – Story of Francisco
5 – Male Rain Days
6 – Shouter’s Shame
7 – Tsaile Southbound
8 – Council Delegate’s Wife
9 – Pain in Popejoy’s Hand
10 – Once More
11 – Standing Ovation
12 – Double Doors
13 – Bend Down for the Meat Parade
14 – Horse Song
15 – Blue Collar Baby
16 – Shouter’s Shame (Demo)
17 – Pain in Popejoy’s Hand (Demo)
18 – For Liquor (Demo)
19 – Male Rain Days (Demo)
20 – Tsaile Southbound (Demo)
Connect With Hataałii
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