Let’s take a quick break from our review of Tiny Desk Contest vids to bring you the latest from dream pop band Humble Fire. Veterans of our Millennium Stage series, they follow up their gorgeous sophomore album Builder with this cover of “Mad World”, the 1982 breakout hit by Tears For Fears. The current political climate, inescapable sometimes in DC, is an obvious influence for this somber song, but Humble Fire turn up the juice for this polished, modern version. The lush music video comes from director Jen Meller, now based in NY but still a big visual contributor to DC’s music scene through collabs with Blight Records. Humble Fire celebrate this release tonight at the Pie Shop with support from Baltimore band Super City.
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Tag Archives: Humble Fire
Top 5 Videos of 2017 #2: Humble Fire – Taliesin
Dream pop band Humble Fire brought much needed beauty into 2017. Their long awaited album Builder dropped back in July, and we were honored to feature the quartet in our Kennedy Center Millennium Stage #DCmusic series in October. We also got two music videos, and our #2 pick in the Top 5 Videos of 2017 is the first, “Taliesin”. Dancer Sadie Leigh choreographed, directed and performs in this poignant tribute to the late father of singer Nefra Faltas. He was an architect and Faltas wrote the cathartic song on a journey to the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture in Taliesin West, Arizona. The lyrics, sounds and movement combine to create transencent grace.
Presenting Humble Fire @ Millennium Stage
We are bummed to announce that John from Run Come See is recovering from an injury, so they can’t perform for our October #DCmusic showcase. They’ll be back with us in 2018, and we are absolutely thrilled that dream pop band Humble Fire has stepped up to play the show!
Humble Fire owes its origins to Craigslist, which first brought guitarist Dave and singer Nefra together through another project and later recruited Xaq, bassist, who responded to Dave’s ad with a purposeful manifesto that will forever go down in band history. While not the band’s original drummer, Jason had long been a friend and active musician in the DC DIY music circuit before signing on in 2016. In its current form, the band celebrates the diverse musical influences that each member draws from–from bluegrass and classical, to punk and hip hop–weaving addictive rhythms and vulnerable vocals through tightly wound guitar and bass melodies.
Humble Fire’s album Builder explores physical and emotional experiences around loss and reconstruction, from family deaths and failed romances to the shocks and stresses they have navigated as a band. Through those experiences, they’ve come to appreciate that reconstruction isn’t something you can tackle on your own: it requires an entire crew. Builder, then, is as much about that process of putting yourself back together, as it is about the relationships that can help or hinder that process. Since Humble Fire’s members have known each other over the past five or so years, they’ve all shown up for each other in different ways as part of that reconstruction crew. They’re lucky to have found family in each other in that way.
Somewhat accidentally, the album also ended up being about working out questions of identity. “Who am I now, in this world without my parents in it”, for example? “How can I take care of others without losing myself?” When the band first listened back to the fully assembled album, they realized it had become a sort of therapy in working out some of those questions. More broadly, Humble Fire’s collective identity is also something they try to be very intentional about. As a DC-based band, they’re immersed in and identify with the tradition of DIY independence and social awareness typically associated with the politics of hardcore punk (despite not working in the genre). They strive to embody those values as a band as much as in their personal lives.
RSVP here and come to the free performance at 6 PM on Friday October 6th!
Humble Fire – Builder
Dreamy pop band Humble Fire have simply been killing it with the music videos leading up to their album release on July 28th. The newest is the album’s emotional title track “Builder”, with visuals from directors Maggie Famiglietti of Wilderness Bureau and GoKateShoot‘s Kate Warren. Strings symbolically connect everything in the video, somewhat reminiscent of DC’s 2016 Instagram hit exhibit Wonder at the Renwick. Celebrate the new video and experience their gorgeous live show Thursday night at the OTHERFEELS house along with enigmatic DC groovers Cifer.
Podcast for May 10th, 2017
Paul recaps his recent trip to the Live Music Capital of the World, while Tony struggles with Facebook’s new colored posts.
Tracklisting:
Bat Fangs – Wolf Bite [single]
Mellow Diamond – Where The Heart Grows [American God]
Humble Fire – Taliesin [Builder]
Julian – drawn 2 [single]
DoubleMotorcycle – The Record [DoubleMotorcycle]
Tristan Welch – Untitled NYC 4 [Haunting New York City]
Or listen in SoundCloud:
Subscribe to the Hometown Sounds podcast in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, TuneIn or your favorite podcast app! (and tell a friend too!)
Humble Fire – Taliesin
Dream pop band Humble Fire really created something special with the video for their new single “Taliesin”. The delicate song’s cryptic title comes from Taliesin West, the home of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona until his death and current location of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Singer Nefra Faltas traveled there and conceived of the song as a response to the death of her father, who was also an architect. The video was directed and choreographed by dancer Sadie Leigh, featuring some cool costume changes as visual effects as the dancers move through their performances. Humble Fire’s sophomore album Builder drops on July 14th, but you can celebrate the single’s release this Thursday night at the Black Cat with support from Sean Barna and CrushnPain.
Humble Fire – Northern Lights (NPR Tiny Desk submission)
Submissions for the NPR Tiny Desk contest closed at midnight last night, and of course most musicians waited until the last minute to record themselves performing a song in or around a desk to win a prestigious spot in Bob Boilen’s online concert series. Today YouTube is awash with video submissions, so this week we’ll highlight some of the best from our favorite DC bands and musicians. Today we’ve got a new unreleased song from acoustic folk experimentalists Humble Fire called “Northern Lights”. If you haven’t yet, grab their debut album The Great Resolve for whatever price fits your budget.
Fresh Tracks! “Gone” by Humble Fire
It’s time for another round of Fresh Tracks!, where Hometown Sounds brings you the very latest in noteworthy music emerging from the District. “Gone”, the first single from dream rock quartet Humble Fire just went live on the group’s Bandcamp page this afternoon, so I’d be hard pressed to find anything much fresher to close out the work week.
Following a 10 second straight ahead sprint of distorted guitar chords and snare drum rolls, the rhythm section busts down the door with an adrenaline-prodding stomp before ducking back down to make way for vocalist Nefra Faltas’ syncopated warbles. Guitarist Dave Epley’s clean, heavily delayed guitar coils throughout the song’s verses before returning to the hurried dash of the intro riff.
“Gone” embodies a noteworthy release for a couple of reasons. First, the track showcases the band’s ability to establish a strong groove you might even characterize as danceable (an uncommon feat for a rock band). Second, this represents the first publicly available studio recording of Humble Fire, which is interesting given that the band has been performing live for some time. However, their previous lack of recordings actually contributed to their sense of mystery and emphasized the importance of catching the band’s blissed out live show, which I’ve had the pleasure of taking in on several occasions.
Humble Fire performs tomorrow (10/26) at Knoxville, Tennessee’s Preservation Pub, but are currently in between performance dates in the DC area. So enjoy this while they’re…”gone”.
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