HEMLOCK ON
NUMEROLOGY
Photo by Jake Tapper
Words by Guilherme C. Tinoco
Domestic life is a new thing for Carolina Chauffe. After a year and a half of permanently being on the road, the troubadour and helmsperson of the revolving alt-folk outfit hemlock find themselves resettled in their home-state of Louisiana. Their latest release, 444, recorded in Chicago shortly before permatour, siphoned from the “phone-fi” recordings of their Song-A-Day saga, a creative effort to pick one month out of each year for twelve years and, well, write one song a day. With a full-band found in Chicago mainstays Jack Henry, Bailey Minzenberger, and Andy “Red” PK, 444 reworks tracks that go back to the project’s inception in February of 2019 and adds a layer of complexity to the once carefree, voice-and-guitar tunes. Through tender instrumentation and candid lyricism, hemlock weaves through the songwriting of their past and present and hint at what the future might hold. With six months down and six more to go, what is in store for hemlock? The answer might be in the numbers. Here’s what Carolina has to say about the symbols that manifested throughout their life:
“It kept popping up in my life and it adds up to the twelve, which is also a hugely significant number in my life because it's how many years of the Song-A-Day project. It's also how many tracks are on the album and there's all the months of the year. There's just a lot wrapped up in time with the number twelve.”
“It was always my lucky number as a kid, I don't know why. Now the numbers of the address at my house adds up to seven, so, it feels like a cute little closure.”
“Eight is a good one too, which upside down is, you know, representative of infinity- so I like how these numbers that play with time in some way… and my birthday has eight. There's like eights in all of the different segments, the day, the year, and the month.”
“My dad, I feel like, always played around with thirteen growing up. Seven and thirteen feel the most typical to me, where it's, okay, your lucky number and your unlucky number… but I think thirteen is actually lucky. It's a hill I would be willing, if not to die on, to fight on.”