PREMIERE: HARMS – “Aquarium”

We’ve all had the feeling when first walking through a major city; that sense of overwhelming possibility. Nowhere is that more all-consuming than New York where artist Jake Harms hails from these days.

Aside from his work in the band What Moon Things, Harms began extrapolating his experiences of first arriving in the city into what would eventually become his debut EP as HARMS, Aquarium. The title track, which we’re premiering today, finds HARMS reflecting on past traumas as his voice and atmospherics soar up through a fiery, dark sonic landscape.

To learn more about Aquarium, we sent HARMS some interview questions. Check it all out below and look for the EP out November 30th via Good Eye Records and add it here.

Hi, HARMS! Congrats on your new EP. Can you tell us a little more on who you are and how you first got into making music?

Thanks :^) Im a 28 year person from Brooklyn, NY. I’ve been making music and writing songs since i was a little kid of 11 or so. My dad showed me Nirvana’s Unplugged and I’ve been down the rabbit hole ever since.

What’s your songwriting process generally like?

It’s pretty slow & filled with anxiety, but there are moments of manic euphoria peppered in there. Depends on how much I’m working/which vitamins Im taking :^)

What is “Aquarium” about? How did it come to be?

Lyrically and melodically, I feel like I was trying to do these bigger, more drawn out melodies that felt influenced, almost underwater, like the feeling of speaking through an obstruction to the listener. A lot of the lyrics I wrote during the first year and a half I lived in the city, when I worked as a courier in manhattan for a bunch of different apps. It was a pretty surreal experience to be learning the city through delivering food to these high rises populated by the extremely wealthy — I felt like I was at a zoo or an aquarium, that the feeling of being in New York City was to be so close to so many interesting experiences and characters but ultimately separated by a lack of engagement, that classic New York “mind your own business” vibe.

The song is my private, dark little joke about deciding to want to live, a montage of imagery about driving around on drugs in my hometown circa high school, & mountains on fire, etc.

“Aquarium” lyrics:

i spent 7 years considering death, but now im spent and im still here, so I guess ill live
my neck is a stalk and each petal you pull off is a way i get you off
so wont you leave me alone, ill walk the tightrope, my eyes like bones, incandescent full moons
and the bad movie starts, and then it goes to sleep, polemic me, just talking dirty

when i walk around i feel like im at the aquarium, the glass eyes divide me and the rest of the world

tightrope walker, above the river, you live on flashbacks of boys while the mountains burn
and ill drive you around until youre feeling less upset, you dont belong in this town
the pink petal at the center of your universe, at the center of my guilt, i dont ever fucking forget
in my hometown the woods are hell, but hell is beautiful and everyone wants to go there

when i walk around…

Who are some of your biggest influences/favorite artists?

the replacements, corbin, women, deftones, choir boy, new order (mostly the album low life), wind up bird, whiner, elliott smith.

Any new artists/venues/purveyors of the arts you could turn our readers onto?

There’s a local spot called Sunnyvale that I like to play, I have friends who work there and I think the sound is really good.

New/local bands i think are good: whiner, dorsia, bye, romantic thriller, what moon things, johnny dynamite, pecas, smock, choir boy, primitive lips, wolf diamond, shadow year, den mate.

Where can we follow you and where can our readers catch you live next?

Dec. 2nd at Sunnyvale in Brooklyn NY for the album release! With Bye and Dorsia and more :^)