VIDEO PREMIERE: Your Heart Breaks Spin Tales of the Road with Kimya Dawson and David Christian (Comet Gain) on “These Old Haunts”

Photo credit: Dre Gordon

Your Heart Breaks is the indie-pop vision of Pacific Northwest musician, artist, and filmmaker Clyde Petersen. Love, friendship, late-night adventures, obscure films and literature, queer identity and self-conceptualization come up often in Petersen’s work. Not quite fitting the Riot Grrrl or indie or twee scenes, YHB were just earnest people playing pop music in a small town for whoever would listen.

In a single-paned townie dream house that functioned as a landing pad for artists of whatever variety, Petersen learned to weave experimental, textural sounds into traditional melodic pop progressions. Between the dirty dishes, overflowing ashtrays, empty 40-ounce Lucky Lager bottles, and Y2K-induced anxiety about the state of the world, Petersen’s lyric-driven songs found their form describing the analog aspects of a lifetime steeped in D.I.Y. culture (and cigarette smoke).

This patchwork of Bellingham artists regularly stayed up all night, listening to records, hosting parties, sharing a single land-line telephone with a handwritten list of phone numbers with no area codes. They allowed each other to be strange, to experiment with art and film and music, free of the pressures of success or fame. They emphatically did not ask for permission.

In the summer of 2022, the Your Heart Breaks studio band, made up of Clyde Petersen, Eli Moore and Ashley Eriksson from the band LAKE and Katherine Paul from Black Belt Eagle Scout, gathered at the Unknown Studio in Anacortes, Washington with producer Nicholas Wilbur to record the songs that would eventually become The Wrack Line.

Your Heart Breaks, the music project of PNW-based trans musician, artist and filmmaker, Clyde Petersen, is releasing a new record on July 7th via Kill Rock Stars. The 19-song collection features collaborations with Kimya Dawson, LAKE, R.Ring, John K. Samson, Danny Denial and many more.

On planet Earth, the wrack line is a collection of organic material and debris left behind on the shore after a high tide. Walking the wrack you’ll find kelp, seagrass, shells, driftwood, dead sea creatures, agates, remnants of humanity and, once in a while, secret treasures thrown overboard from a container ship caught in a storm. Clyde Petersen’s The Wrack Line holds true to this natural phenomenon–a summation of the past few years, a lifetime of friendships, feelings and memories, broken free of a gyre and left upon the artists’ shoreline. The album was written as a collaborative effort between Petersen, occasionally known as Your Heart Breaks, and a slew of many special guests across the world. These songs were created through numerous exchanges of concepts, hooks, riffs, and emotional conversations, processed through tin-can telephones, carrier pigeons, twilight dreams, and shooting stars. Take your shoes off and walk the beach.

Today Glide is premiering the video for the standout tune “These Old Haunts,” which features guest appearances from Kimya Dawson and David Christian of Comet Gain. Musically, the tune brings to mind the late 90s and early aughts indie rock while also carrying an ominous western vibe. Indeed, Clyde aimed to give it a haunted sound. The straightforward instrumentation allows for the vivid and at times darkly humorous lyrics to really shine, with each artist contributing verses to give the song the feel of being sang around a campfire.

Clyde Petersen describes the inspiration behind the song:

“These Old Haunts” was inspired by the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland and the song “Highwayman” by the Highwaymen. I’ve spent my life touring the world with many performers and I was lucky enough to repeatedly tour with Kimya Dawson. I wanted to write a song that encompassed our adventures on the road, the good and the bad. I asked Kimya Dawson and David Christian (Comet Gain) to write some verses for the song. My ultimate dream for this is a “We are the World” style concert where 100 musicians get to take a verse, adding their own touring experiences to the tune.

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