Brooklyn’s Hem Casts A Spell

(Above [L-R]: Hem's Gary Maurer, Sally Ellyson, Steve Curtis and Dan Messé. Photo by John Pamer.)

Magic seems to follow atmospheric, chamber-folk collective Hem—at least as evinced by the Brooklyn band’s latest, the odds-and-ends collection No Word From Tom. According to Hem’s Dan Messé, it was meant to be an EP, but “as we got into it, we just really fell in love with the recordings we were doing.”

In a taxi on the Brooklyn bridge, on his way home from mixing, Messé notes that the Tom recordings will affect the next “proper” album (working title: Funnel Cloud). “It all came out of the sessions from No Word From Tom where we really tried to capture this live sound. Sally [Ellyson]’s vocal takes were the actual scratch vocals. … Normally our recording process is to go over every note, every syllable, and it was just incredibly freeing to realize that if you just do a live take with 20 people in the room—strings, pedal steel, piano, drums, everybody—there was this incredible magic that took place.”

Surprisingly cohesive, No Word From Tom includes live tracks, outtakes and covers, most notably a shimmering, aching, instant-repeat take on R.E.M.’s “So. Central Rain.” Up next for Hem: touring—the band is on the road with Josh Ritter through May, and plans are underway for dates with kindred spirits Over The Rhine.