A snapshot of Jacob Augustine’s late mother graces the cover of I Love You Forever (Team Love), his first album in more than a decade. Her cancer diagnosis was the second act in a grim double-whammy that began when his grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Raised in Lincoln, Maine, a former paper-mill town about an hour from the Canadian border, Augustine had gained creative traction in Portland before returning north to serve as a caretaker for family members. He’s been more itinerant of late, relocating to Philadelphia for a spell before bouncing around Europe for a hostel-hopping sojourn he says was the best choice he ever made.
Somewhere out of the blur of the past 10 years came I Love You Forever, the latest juncture in an extraordinarily diverse journey that stretches back almost two decades—one rooted in (but hardly confined to) indie folk. With a core band of Hamilton Belk on pedal steel, Peter McLaughlin on drums and Asher Platts on bass, Augustine finds sonic reconciliation for a difficult batch songs mostly written when his mother was sick, transcending his personal struggles to take on the capitalist machine and its corporate greed, systemic racism and rural ignorance.
Augustine’s latest single, “Halfway To Harlem,” is cut from that same dystopian cloth. “It’s post-apocalyptic survivor studies—car alarms serenading the cities of America to dead-battery silence,” he says. “The song was inspired by the times we live in … choosing hope over dread and defeat.”
The video stars Augustine’s nephew, Niall. “His character represents the youth of the world—being forced to mask their fears and the harsh realities they grow up in … to shield them from hopelessness and the dismal future they may face,” says Augustine. “It was a joy to shoot with Niall, (director) Joshua Powers and his brother Jared. The video makes me cry every time I watch it.”
We’re proud to premiere Jacob Augustine’s “Highway To Harlem.” I Love You Forever is out May 22.
—Hobart Rowland
See Jacob Augustine live.