The premise right here is deceptively easy: a track that appears like a love track however isn’t, or somewhat, is — simply not the sort you initially assume. “South of Seattle” is Misha Honest writing about music itself, concerning the stage, concerning the specific relationship between a performer and an viewers that sustains a profession throughout many years. The misdirection is intentional and it really works, as a result of the sentiments it describes — distance, longing, tenderness, the query of whether or not the connection will nonetheless be there — are genuinely transferable between their obvious topic and their actual one.
The query Honest is asking is a significant one: what’s going to it really feel like, twenty or thirty years from now, to stroll onto a stage and discover that the spark remains to be there? That’s not a nostalgic query. It’s a forward-looking one, and it comes from somebody with sufficient performing historical past behind her to know that the spark will not be assured — that it must be tended, that it may be misplaced, that the connection between an artist and the act of performing requires the identical care as any relationship value conserving.
Honest’s sound attracts from Americana, nation, folks, bluegrass, soul and rock — a broad palette that, in much less assured arms, dangers turning into unanchored. Produced in collaboration with Jason Wyatt of WeThePeople Music Productions, with Nashville session musicians contributing to the association, the manufacturing provides her vocals house to hold the emotional weight of the writing somewhat than competing with it. That restraint is its personal selection, and the best one for materials this inside.
What’s notable about “South of Seattle” as a fifth single is what it suggests about how Honest understands her personal work. This isn’t a track written to introduce an artist or set up a model. It’s a track concerning the lengthy recreation
