Out now is the new single “One in the Same” by Blume Hinges, the project name for Canadian (Saskatoon) based singer/songwriter Aaron Egeland with the backing of Scott Simon Haus and drummer Justin Hauck. “One in the Same” is the first single from Blume Hinges’ forthcoming sophomore album, due out this summer, that was written and recorded over the past two years in both Saskatoon and Chicago. The album’s most accessible pop/rock/alt track, featuring layered and interplaying guitars and a counter melodic bass, “One in the Same” is both concise and explosive.
Regarding the meaning and themes of the track and album Egeland states, “The song is about the conflicting identities of two people and the first glimmer of the possible breakup of a relationship. It’s about realizing that your old self is gone and the person that you used to be no longer exists… and the resulting disillusionment and disassociation that can often accompany this realization. With regards to the album, the concept is essentially a deep dive into an identity crisis. It’s about recognizing a new-self being formed/forming, and recognizing the positive and negative aspects of that. It’s about the feelings of wanting to become someone else, and how those feelings can be internalized via subtly adopting certain traits, mannerisms, or ways of being that are utterly new and foreign to you.”
Canadian (Saskatoon) singer/songwriter Aaron Egeland has been writing and recording original, hook-driven, melodic material that draws heavily from alt rock, noise rock and grunge and pop with some experimental leanings, influenced by an eclectic array of artists. Back in 2016, Egeland began a long-distance collaboration with Chicago-based engineer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Simon to flesh out and fully realize the material he had written – under the moniker Blume Hinges. The end result was Egeland’s 2017 full-length debut We Float
Slated for a Summer 2020 release through Diversion Records, Blume Hinges’ sophomore album “represents the theme of identity crisis and the struggles inherent in the formation of identities,” Egeland explains. “It’s meant to convey the themes of loneliness and isolation that stem from (and also can be remedied by) making art, as well as the internal processes that largely go unnoticed by the people around you, because we are enculturated and socialized to suppress these feelings and understand them as weakness.” Egeland adds “Essentially, it represents – for me – the beauty that can come from isolation, the beauty that can come from your own mind, regardless of whether anyone else is ever made aware of it. It is my creative process summed up in a pretty phrase.”
Egeland started writing new material towards the tail end of 2017, after the release of his debut and while writing the album, he went back to The University of Saskatchewan to study anthropology, eventually finishing it in mid 2018. Interestingly, the album’s material is informed by Egeland’s dabbling in social theory. “I like to sort of analyze the manner in which my own identity has been formed by social structures vs. agency, and how this then affects the way I perceive myself and others,” the Saskatchewan-based singer/songwriter says. “I like to try to put myself in others’ shoes as much as I can, and try to understand why they do the things they do, why I value and pursue certain things rather than others, why I project certain identities in certain social situations and not others, and how this sort of selective use of identities can further your positioning in certain social situations.” Adds Egeland “More than anything I like observing people . . . I like the little snapshots that these experiences give you [insight] into other people’s realities, other people’s existences. It’s fascinating.”
Sonically, when you hear the album’s material, it’s indebted to 120 Minutes-era alt rock: fuzzy power chords, enormous and rousingly mosh pit friendly hooks paired with songwriting that features a novelistic attention to psychological detail paired with an unvarnished emotional honesty and vulnerability.
