Warm Human

Meredith Johnston, the singer-songwriter-producer at the heart of indie project Warm Human, borrowed the title word for her upcoming record, Hamartia, from Greek tragedy. It proves fitting, as Hamartia probes into Johnston’s feelings on the so-called fatal flaws in her own life, without skimping on the catchy hooks and bracingly frank lyricism.

“This whole album is pop music for deranged people,” Johnston says.

Johnston’s latest LP is a return to the electronic roots of Warm Human. She explains that much of this record was written after a period of intense introspection and personal assessment that she calls “Meredith Rehab” (Johnston has been sober for more than 8 years, but spent this time with her parents, attending daily 12 step meetings, taking hour long walks, and figuring out how to tend to her own mental health).

The album is filled with these sorts of incisive, frank lyrics, that explore the LP’s trio of core concepts around bitterness, moods, and motherhood. “I asked for space and you gave me the moon,” she sings on“My Moods!!” adding, “I’m riding shotgun with my shit attitude.”

“I'm not a poptimist. I'm a pop pessimist, and I like that. I like being able to bring actual sadness, not like therapy speaks sadness, but actual despair and anguish and self-hatred and all of the things that I struggle with all the time into a pop record,” she says.