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Northernhay is the second album by The Gentle Spring, the Paris-based trio of Field Mice co-founder Michael Hiscock, Émilie Guillaumot and Jérémie Orsel. Wisdom, wistfulness and reflections on love and community run through songs whose melodic pull recalls The Field Mice at their best.
More upbeat than debut Looking Back At The World, the album retains the band’s shimmering acoustic guitars and sinuous bass, adding drums and percussion beneath Michael’s and Émilie’s voices. Echoes of early Microdisney and Pet Shop Boys meet direct, deeply emotive vocals and insistent rhythms.
Named after a winding street near Hiscock’s childhood home in Croydon, Northernhay revisits the places where creative friendships formed and the wider world first felt mysterious and full of possibility. “We Let Our Feelings Show” recalls the excitement of starting a band, while “The Second City” celebrates the books, records and discoveries of his hometown.
Elsewhere, “Down With Love” and “Could I Ever Feel The Same Again” question the pressures of conventional romance, while “Cutting Me In Two” brings relationship pain to an indie-disco pulse. Opening song “Tied To You” offers an open-hearted counterpoint, reflecting an album that finds renewed optimism in love and community without overlooking how fragile both can be.
Tracklist
TBC