For a Song: Half Acre

Hem: Half Acre

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There is a term I see every now and again in articles about music: chamber pop. I grew up in a household where my parents had friends over every Saturday evening to play classical chamber music, so I relate the term to that. Chamber pop, to me, involves small ensembles that include instruments associated with classical music, such as violin, clarinet, and cello. My introduction to chamber pop was the music of Hem, and this song was the first thing I ever heard by them. Half Acre certainly isn’t a classical work, but it does take me back, in some ways, to those lullabies of my childhood. In the lyric, the narrator works her way through mixed feelings over the concept of “home”, and that also seems appropriate to me.