The second single from the Brooklyn FIVE-Piece’s forthcoming full-length borrows lyrics from an NYC painter to reckon with a post-breakup identity crisis
———————————————————————————————
The magic of love, and the beauty of partnership, is in the meshing of lives, the melding of worlds, the delicious and delirious sensation of melting into another person—physically, spiritually, emotionally.
It’s is both an organic and optimistic act. An entanglement that’s equally intentional and incidental. A slow interpersonal integration that occurs one t-shirt/toothbrush/weekend/wedding/friend/family member/holiday/habit at a time as you each, together, make the gradual transition from me to we.
Which is all well and good, until… well, until it isn’t, right? Even the most amicable of breakups is sure to leave you sorting through wreckage while you sift through memories, and the longer and/or deeper the relationship, the more of a mess you’re left to reckon with if it ends. And it’s not just the clerical work; it’s far more difficult and delicate than dividing and re-distributing art, books and records and determining who gets cat custody. When you’ve so fully fused with another person, it’s not just about remembering what was yours, but about remembering who you are.
It’s this personal crisis, a post-separation scrambling to rediscover a sense of self, that Williamsburg-based five-piece Book/Spirit explores in their absolute earworm of a single, which is out everywhere tomorrow. And today, a day ahead of the official release, I’m extremely stoked to premiere it here!
From Book/Spirit, it’s “Haunt You.”
I’m turning into a specter / And I’m gonna haunt you
“‘Haunt You’ is really about navigating that loss of identity that can occur at the end of a relationship when so much of your identity was tied up in that relationship,” Book/Spirit vocalist/guitarist Pete Ferrari says of the new track, in which the singer grapples with his own disappearance while describing supernatural plans to cling on and linger in his lover’s life.
As for the origin of the song, art begets art—here, in the most multimedia of ways, with Pete borrowing lyrics from a piece of art he discovered a decade and a half ago, finally finding a home for the lines that originally captured his imagination with the help of his bandmate (and co-lead vocalist), Michael Susa.
“Back in 2008 or so, I saw this Glenn Ligon painting in the Philadelphia Art Museum that had the phrase ‘I’m turning into a specter before your very eyes and I’m going to haunt you’ repeated over and over,” Pete shared. “After an unsuccessful attempt to use it in a song back then, I finally found the right vehicle when I heard Mike’s guitar riff over 10 years later.”
“Haunt You” follows Book/Spirit’s debut single “Meant To Be.” (While the band has been playing live for years, the only music they had online before October was Live at Fremin, a nine-track record that documents a totally improvised performance at the Fremin Art Gallery and was recorded using a portable recording device.) The song is the second single from the forthcoming full-length, Easements—an album tackling topics such as burnout, relationships and self-realization—set for release March 1st.
Along with Pete and Mike, Book/Spirit is Pierre Ratzki (third guitar), Alejandro Zaniolo (bass) and Garrett Troy (recruited by way of a Craigslist ad seeking a “krautrock drummer”). As for the band name, Book/Spirit is a reference to “the interplay between matter and spirit” and reflects “the diverse and, at times, opposing creative influences within the band”—
Stay tuned to see where group’s melding of mediums and its members’ individual, but clearly complementary, sources of inspiration take them next.
———————————————————————————————
Follow the band at @bookspiritband, buy music on Bandcamp and add the songs to your Spotify playlist!
Feature image provided by the band.