Cream Premiere: Anne Malin Peers Into Memory in 'Hourglass' [Fresh Track]

Time is something we write about a lot, in part because it's so mysterious. The passage of time has a profound effect on us and the world around us, yet we can only experience it indirectly, through things we can observe. The way that memories stick with us and change over time is among the most personal ways we can track it.

Anne Malin Ringwalt, a writer of literary songs that draw from and expand on folk music who performs as Anne Malin, makes an in-depth examination of the traces that time leaves on Waiting Song, a new album she's set to self-release Oct. 2. Today, we're very pleased to premiere "Hourglass," a song from the record that directly addresses the feeling of being unmoored in time, in ways both positive and negative, that many of us have experienced since the start of the pandemic.

“When I wrote ‘Somewhere an hourglass stands at night / Sand slips by in the moonlight,’ I was feeling — at the depth of [partner and bandmate Will Johnson’s] and my unemployment — out of control but loving the experience of how dense our days together were, how our days blurred together,” writes Ringwalt. “I was picturing time as something far away from us. The image of sand inside the hourglass got me thinking about summer, though, and all the ways I’d enjoy my time pre-COVID. As I wrote, I moved from this sense of temporal bewilderment to my relationship with Will. We’re getting married late this summer, so when I sing about ‘last July’ I’m singing about Will proposing to me — how time seemed to be opening up for us then, the possibility we felt. How does one enter that sense of possibility from a pandemic? I tried to sing towards that.”

The lilt of the song and its dance-like rhythm make the memory physical in an interesting way. Asked whether that came about by design or through a happy accident, Anne Malin explains that the first recording of the song presented it in a completely different way.

“The first version was way more gothic with heavier organ and less emphasis on percussion,” she says. “We hated that version — there felt like an emotional disconnect between the lyrics and the music. I wanted the song to feel lighter, and Will was down to experiment. So we worked a whole new arrangement around my vocal track, eventually re-recording my vocals when we got everything flowing in the right direction. It was definitely an intentional process, and it felt so exciting to see the song through.”

Take a listen to the track below, and visit Anne Malin's website or Bandcamp or your favorite record store to preorder a copy of Waiting Song. Also, keep an eye on her Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for updates.