Ears Wide Open: Hurt Valley

Kevin Bronson on December 10th, 2019

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L.A.-based singer-songwriter Brian Collins makes music as Hurt Valley, a name that implies profound injury even if songs are more just a deep contemplation of everything a famous film character meant when he said “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

The moniker actually has its origins in a long-ago trip that Collins, who teaches science at an L.A. high school, took to Death Valley, and you can hear it the landscape in some of his songs.

His debut album, “Glacial Pace,” is a collection of spare, deceivingly reserved folk and pop songs. It came out last week via Woodsist, a comfy home for such music. In Hurt Valley’s case, the music alternates between twangy Americana and wobbly psychedelia, all gently produced to give the record a sweep that belies its skeletal parts.

“Glacial Pace” isn’t as forlorn as its opening track, “Geology Dreamer,” a song with the same vibe as Neil Young’s “Helpless.” Even with its mid-album directives “Live in to It” and “Be the Lighthouse,” Hurt Valley asks more questions that it answers, all of them relevant, most speaking to often self-inflicted human frailties.

If you’re looking for a thesis, it arrives at the end in the form of “Immaterial Worlds,” where in his likably shambling way Collins asks “How can our demons be put away / if all we ever do is create / immaterial worlds / no one occupies in real life?” He adds, “When we’re awake / and breathing / without touch / there is no feeling.”

Something to think about the next time you reach out to someone.

||| Stream: “Apartment Houses”