Fotoform – Grief Is A Garden

Fotoform, the Seattle-based shoegaze-infused post-punk band known for their emotionally charged music, is set to release their highly anticipated third album Grief is a Garden (Forever in Bloom) on April 18.

Today, Fotoform is excited to share their new single, “Grief is a Garden” along with its accompanying music video directed by Erik Foster.

The track delves into deeply personal themes of grief and loss, with Kim House of Fotoform offering insight into its creation:

The title track to our upcoming album, “Grief is a Garden” reflects on the enduring, ever-evolving nature of grief and how it changes over time. Grief blooms, decays and nourishes itself, embodying love, beauty, pain and transformation. As we move through life, we accumulate grief, and the song contemplates the evolving nature of our relationship to loss and love, as grief becomes a part of us, forever changing us and informing our new selves as we continue with life after loss.

My brother Jeff passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of February, right after we released our first single. I am still trying to absorb the devastating reality that he is gone. I never could have imagined I would lose another brother just as we are starting to release songs off our album, which is centered around grief, loss, resilience and healing. The lyric “Waves keep crashing, unforeseen, losing someone is never what it seems” has been swirling around me as I feel blindsided by the loss of my brother. We’d been planning on talking about grief with the new record, but it’s another thing to suddenly find yourself newly grieving again. 

The longing for answers to life’s unknowable questions is palpable throughout this song, as I’ve wrestled with existential doubts since childhood, questioning everything from the stories I was raised with to the mysteries of life and death itself. “Into the ether, we all call out” is a reference to the unknowable place we enter when we die – an acknowledgement and a cry for connection.

Loved ones who touch our souls meld with our spirit and never leave us. Tethers to those we’ve lost surround us when we open our hearts. We often feel these connections after we lose someone: a certain song comes on the radio or a shared symbol appears at the most poignant time. Heightened awareness of these synchronicities tethers us to those we’ve lost.

Grief, so deeply personal yet also universal, is hanging heavy for so many of us these days. We all find ourselves in mourning, whether for loved ones, the erosion of societal values, social injustice, dismantling of democracy, upheaval from natural disasters and the intensifying climate crisis, loss of relationships, former versions of ourselves after injury and disability and anticipatory grief of what’s to come – the list is endless.

Creating this album was a ritual in reflecting on grief, sitting with it, metabolizing, and letting it sink into all the cracks and crevices, fully absorbing grief to understand – and eventually release – some of its tight hold / energy. As I return to this familiar and tender state of fresh sorrow and loss, I take comfort in the knowledge that with time, grief will soften around the edges and the warmth of love will reclaim its position in the foreground. 

Fotoform Tour Dates (more TBA):

April 2 – Seattle, WA @ The Central Saloon
April 10 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
April 19 – Paris, FR @ La Mécanique Ondulatoire
April 24 – Berlin, DE @ Tommyhaus
April 25 – Dresden, DE @ Scheune/Blechschloss
April 30 – Münster, DE @ Rare Guitar
May 3 – Meschede, DE @ Mono Bar
May 9 – Madrid, ES @ TBD
May 10 – Guadalajara, ES @ TBD
May 29 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern 

#fotoformband