HAARMS: Tracks That Shaped Our Sound

Get ready to embark on a musical journey with Liverpool's Alt-Pop trio HAARM as they make their triumphant return after a brief hiatus. They're about to set the music scene ablaze with a massive piano-led track titled "Do The Right Thing," slated for release on October 18th, 2023. But that's not all - HAARM has a thrilling surprise in store. This single is just the beginning of a new wave of music, with a fresh track set to drop every six weeks until Spring 2024, when their long-awaited debut LP will make its digital and limited edition vinyl debut.

While HAARM has been on a brief hiatus, their members have been far from idle. Dr. Jennifer Davies completed her PhD, Olly has been composing scores for French films and playing with bands like Banners and King Hannah, and Chris ventured into a unique gig as a host for Bongo's Bingo. But now, they're back with a live show in Liverpool on the horizon, scheduled for October 26th at The Shipping Forecast, and a string of UK and EU dates to be announced early next

"Do The Right Thing" is an emotional powerhouse of a song that delves into the complexities of relationships. As singer Chris McIntosh puts it, "We've been listening to stuff like Sebastien Tellier, Moby, and Caribou a lot recently, and I think you can hear those influences in this track." Meanwhile, Jen Davies shares, "It's a really emotional song. It's about hitting a bit of a stalemate in a relationship and feeling extremely confused about all the feelings that are going on in your head. The guilt, the worry, and how maybe your head knows you should be doing the right thing, but your heart is a little bit curious to find out what the alternative to that is."

HAARM's comeback is nothing short of an electrifying musical revival, and we can't wait to see what they have in store for us. Don't miss the resurgence of this exceptional trio as they redefine the alt-pop landscape. They picked out the tracks that shaped their sound below:

Sébastien Tellier - La Ritournelle

This track came into my life about 6 years ago or something and I was instantly attracted to the piano part and the drum part. The drummer is Tony Allen, who is probably the greatest drummer that ever lived played in Fela Kuti’s band. When Tony Allen died, Sébastien made his isolated drum part available to download on his Soundcloud page and we reworked an old track of ours using those drums. We’ve not released that yet but we will soon. (Chris, Vox/Guitar)

Paul Simon - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover

When we were messing around with this track, Chris started tapping a beat on the acoustic guitar with the snare landing on the 4 which made me think of Paul Simon ‘50 Ways’ which is such a cool song. So we tried to replicate some of the feel in our beat

Sault - Why, Why, Why, Why, Why?

This is an incredible song and although ours sounds nothing like this really, there was loads of inspiring subtleties we found listening to this. I love it when, for the last chorus, they bring in an acoustic guitar that just strums almost percussively these lovely chords underneath it all, it opens it all up and unless you’re really paying attention you won’t know what’s changed it’s that subtle. We threw an acoustic guitar in the bridges in our song after hearing this.

Marion Ryan - Love Me Forever

We’re huge fans of using oohs and aaahs as backing vocals in our songs - they feature in nearly all of our singles so far but for this one, we wanted the backing vocals to sound like that dreamy, wavy, female backing vocals that you used to get on so many of the old love songs from the 1950s. We listened to loads of it to try and find something we could replicate and this was one of my favourites.