In Cape Crush’s new single ‘Place Memory,’ the title track to the Massachusetts power-emo band’s forthcoming album due out this spring, vocalist and guitarist Ali Lipman reflects back on a peaceful day spent with her sister. Together, the two fix up their house, paint it a vibrant shade of blue, and discuss the poetry of Robert Frost before Lipman waves goodbye to her sibling, who then sails out to sea. They wave to each other; Lipman back on the shoreline, and the sister fading from view out on the horizon.
But that day, in fact, never happened. Instead, it’s part of a daydream journey that was the result of some life choices Lipman made along the way, and how the opposite of those choices can exist in a parallel universe with a sense of calm and comfort guiding the way.
“The term ‘Place Memory’ is the supernatural theory that a place can hold an energetic memory,” Lipman says, “like when you hear ghostly footsteps or a disembodied voice, that perhaps you’re not hearing something intelligent, you’re hearing a repeat of that memory played back to you as if on tape. Or maybe you’re hearing your sister on the other side of the veil?”
An urgent swell of emo, post-hardcore, and alt-rock, with lightning guitar riffs wouldn’t sound out of place on an early-aughts Coheed and Cambria album and saccharine sweet vocals that exude an inviting tone and nature, ‘Place Memory’ continues to thematically shape the album – officially out May 1 on digital, CD, and vinyl – that features it.
It was first written after Lipman, a big fan of advice columns, read a Dear Sugar column from 2011 in The Rumpus, titled The Ghost Ship that Didn’t Carry Us, in which the advice seeker was looking for wisdom about his indecision about having children. Lipman was drawn to the fear and indecision around making life-altering choices that aren’t easy, and in the reply, Sugar referenced a poem called The Blue House, by Tomas Transtromer.
“It talks about the choice we don’t make becoming a sister ship bound for a different route,” Lipman reveals. “One that we can only wave at from the shoreline.”
The specific scene that decorates ‘Place Memory’ may not be rooted in reality, but contains a release valve that is just as important as anything that may have taken place given decisions Lipman was faced with in the past.
