***Hectorine’s Sarah Gagnon calls up the spirit of the ancient Sumerian warrior goddess Inanna to explain the tumult that surrounded the making of Arrow of Love, her third full-length album. In Mesopotamian myth, the goddess descends into the underworld to learn the secrets of the chthonic realm. As she passes through each of the seven gates of hell, she is forced to relinquish a piece of her queenly armor, jewels, and robes. She arrives naked at the throne of her sister Ereshkigal, who kills her and hangs her corpse on a hook on the wall. After three days Inanna is rescued, revived, and returned to her kingdom, but she is pursued by demons who demand that someone take her place in the underworld. When she discovers that her beloved shepherd Dumuzi has not mourned her death, she sacrifices him.
Hectorine’s latest album tells a lower key tale of death and rebirth, encompassing a period in which Gagnon lost a job and ended a relationship under the shadow of a modern plague and raging wildfires, retreating into enforced solitude until it was possible to emerge again.
“You certainly don't just become who you are overnight,” she says. “You go through trials and tribulations to get there.” The story, which she encountered through an online literature class with poet Ariana Reines, took on a special resonance for her as she fought through pandemic-induced loneliness. “During the pandemic, especially that first year, a lot of us went through a kind of hell — there were so many unknowns, so many protests, so many fires, there was so much fear. For me, it was a time where I had no choice but to face my demons.”
Arrow of Love recounts this process of initiation in chronological order, from the marimba-clinking opener “Is Love an Illusion?” through the solemn, organ-laden desolation of Joan of Arc-themed “No Hallelujah” to the armor-clad ebullience of the title track, near the end, as life and love reassert their pull, but the album ends with a hint of trepidation on “Slip Through My Fingers.”
And yet, though the subject matter is heavy, the music is not. Gagnon’s velvety contralto—if you think she sounds a bit like Christine McVie, you’re not the first—weaves with assurance among trance-like dream pop architectures. Fleetwood Mac’s late career album Tango in the Night was a touchstone as she worked in the studio. Other key influences included Judie Tzuke, Leonard Cohen, Yoko Ono, Labyrinth-era Bowie, Bridget St. John, and Peter Gabriel.
