Today, Warm Human—the moniker of singer-songwriter Meredith Johnston—released her brand new album, Hamartia, via Sooper Records. The LP was produced by Johnston and Conor Mackey (NNAMDI, Mobobody, Lynyn) and is a follow-up to last year’s Hometown Hero. Walking away from the rock and guitar influence of that record, Johnston has made a return to her electronic origins after a “period of intense introspection and personal assessment” that she calls “Meredith Rehab.” Johnston, who has been sober for eight years, takes her own metamorphosis and integrates it with Greek tragedies and the music of Portishead, Sheryl Crow and Frou Frou.
On a song like “Mercy Me,” Johnston embraces all of those elements, presenting a delightful, catchy dance track that is psychological and splendid, as she muses on desire by reckoning with uneasiness. It’s cheeky (“Don’t you kinda think that I’m your type / Crazy girl, hysterical, she lies / Thought I had reformed, oh well, I tried / Breaking out the scalpel, seeing what’s inside”) and solemn (“Bodies in ruin / Parting seas of crowds with my moods and / Everything’s so goddamn amusing / But I don’t get the joke”), but what makes “Mercy Me” so rewarding is the openness that Johnston works through. Sanity, or lackthereof, is a weapon, and rotten fruit is still worth a taste. Sweet misery is a club track worth bumping, and “Mercy Me” holds no remorse.
To coincide with Hamartia‘s release, Warm Human has released a music video to accompany the album’s title track. Johnston says of the record: “I’m not a poptimist. I’m a pop pessimist, and I like that. I like being able to bring actual sadness, not like therapy speak sadness, but actual despair and anguish and self-hatred and all the things that I struggle with all the time into a pop record.”
Watch the music video for “Hamartia,” co-directed by Carol Brandt and Johnston, below.
