Having already set out their sonic stall, set the tone and set more than a few heads spinning with recent singles, “last stop” and “fear the mourning,” HATS™ continues to wander the liminal spaces between dream pop and folktronica, between sound and space, between music and atmosphere, between deftness and delicacy with latest single “hand me downs.”
For just over four dreamy, drifting, delicious minutes, we are treated to an electronic, chamber-pop masterclass, one where zeros and ones are turned into sweeping sonics, where digitalia is reworked into symphonic forms and where the mathematics of modern music creation become gentle artistic, elemental forces.
This modern-day fairy tale is a wonderful metaphor for the transformation and evolution of our lives; these Emperors’ old clothes, the titular “hand me downs,” are the layers of skin we shed or retain, voluntarily or otherwise, as we move from one stage of life to another, becoming someone new and different but also remaining familiar in certain other ways.
Often, people prefer the familiar, enjoy their comfort zones, and try to control every aspect of life to avoid confrontation and change. But life is all about navigating the everlasting state of flux, understanding that change is the only constant. “hand me downs” is a testament to change; we may not know where life leads or who we are going to be when we get there, but if you follow the discarded trail of clothes, those discarded layers of skin, you can appreciate just how far you have come in life so far. When measured in such ways, the distance you have travelled is likely to surprise you.
