Hiraeth, a Welsh word, is a sense of nostalgia and longing for a place or person that may never have existed.
100 Mile House are husband and wife duo Peter Stone and Denise MacKay. Their 2017 album, Hiraeth serves for them as an avenue to seek the light from deep within darkness. For the listener, Hiraeth may conjure a different road travelled. What is shared by the band and listener on the journey, despite the melancholic instrumentation, lyrics & vocals, is a sense of hope and limitlessness. Though Hiraeth does eventually come to a close, we all ‘march on’ to live another day and continue our pilgrimage ‘toward the light’. In Hiraeth we hear clear bonds between musicians and our shared humanity.
Before hope however, we must experience its opposite. We have all despaired at different points in time. There is not one human being born who can escape suffering, loss and the feeling of letting go. There are many of us who do try, however. 100 Mile House face life and all of it’s joy and pitfalls head on, resulting in a wondrous collection of tracks. Denise MacKay and Peter Stone do an exquisite job of rendering their memories into songs that sound both immediate and timeless. The stories contained on Hiraeth are intimate yet universal. The accompanying music, complete with lustrous strings, rare and spirited drumming and sweet guitar is as familiar as it is mythological in scope. 100 Mile House manage to paint new worlds with their sound while still being cemented in the here and now. Perhaps what they create from the ether is meant as a remedy for the affliction of living? Like sweet n’ sour soup, there’s so much to experience when listening and relating to the magic 100 Mile House creates. Their songs are simple while at the same time, require repeat playbacks to fully allow their magnitude to land.
Like the Swell Season’s Glen Hansard and Makéta Irglová, listening to 100 Mile House’s folk sound is akin to flipping through the personal scrapbook of a bonded couple in life and creativity. Seamlessly trading vocals and harmonies is made to sound elementary by the front-couple of MacKay and Stone. They are completely in step with one another. Curl up, close your eyes and feel 100 Mile House right there beside you in your heart.
“You feel like home, more than any four walls” is a lyric that may well sum up Hiraeth the best. This is indeed an album that ‘feels like home’. Hiraeth feels dependable, even at its dark turns. 100 Mile House have produced a record that seems as though it is inhabited by all of us and yet exhibits a loving bond between the artists and those who’ve touched their lives. The album Hiraeth is sure give to give each listener the sense of ‘hiraeth’. I have to assume we all long to be a part of something as wonderful as 100 Mile House’s exquisite fourth album.
--Val Christopher
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On Capital City Records!