The final episode of “Live From My Den,” the weekly series hailing from Variety and Artists Den, features indie folk band The Head and the Heart as they perform songs from their latest album “Living Mirage: The Complete Recordings,” a special edition vinyl of which will be released on Record Store Day Friday (Nov. 27). The series provides intimate performances from today’s top musicians.
Fresh off the release of the deluxe edition of “Living Mirage,” their fourth studio album, vocalists Charity Rose Thielen and Matt Gervais performed a cover of late singer-songwriter John Prine’s “All the Best” and “Backwards Breathing” from their recently constructed garage-turned-home-studio in Seattle, Wash. Meanwhile, vocalist, guitarist and percussionist Jon Russell sang “One Big Mystery” and a stripped-down version of their single “Honeybee,” which was among the tunes the band wrote on a music retreat in a low-key studio in Joshua Tree, Calif. last year.
While Thielen, who is also a violinist, said the band misses the connectivity afforded by touring — both with fellow members and fans, as well as family and friends living in various cities — The Head and the Heart try to facilitate togetherness through livestreams from their Washington studio.
“The studio has become a space for us to connect with the world, to broadcast outward and talk to everybody else that’s going through the same thing,” keyboardist Gervais said.
Russell, who is currently in San Francisco in his industrial and spacious studio, said his artistic space also fosters creativity. The crux of making “Living Mirage” was each member “stripping [their] identity” to come together and record as a collective, he said.
