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Nov 27, 2020 Kacey Johansing By Caleb Campbell Photography by Anna St. Louis

Singer/songwriter Kacey Johansing, formerly of the San Francisco band Yesway and current member of Hand Habits, has returned with her newest video for “Even A Lot Feels Like Nothing,” debuting with Under the Radar. Johansing is fresh off the release of her fourth album, No Better Time. Johansing describes the album as her “LA record,” a sweeping capture of classic pop music. Symphonic elements such as strings, vibraphones, and woodwinds bring a grand instrumental presence to the record. Meanwhile producer and bandmember Tim Ramsey, Todd Dahlhoff (Feist, Devendra Banhart), Trevor Beld Jimenez (Parting Lines), and Amir Yaghmai (Julian Casablancas + The Voidz) all bring their unique talents into the mix.

With “Even A Lot Feelings Like Nothing” Kacey Johansing joins the ranks of other chamber pop balladeers such as Julia Holter or Weyes Blood, anchoring the song with a pastoral walking piano melody and rich instrumental arrangements. Johansing’s brilliant, heartstring-tugging vocal conveys a touching honesty and vulnerability as she walks through the difficult process of rediscovering love. She sings, When your heart too many times has been broken / Love was not what I thought it was / I’m mistaken / Please let me try again.” The video is the song’s emotive visual counterpart, following Johansing with long, sunset-lit tracking shots. There is an unflinching focus from the camera on Johansing and from Johansing back to the camera, communicating both the heartbreak and the hope that form the emotional core of the track.

“This song took years to write,” Johansing explains. “I would sit down at the piano every few weeks and keep coming back to the melodic theme and a lyric or two. I often felt like I’d never finish it and that it would be another unrealized song lost to the ether. Tim [Ramsey] kept encouraging me to finish it and let me know it was worth seeing through. I finally finished it right before going into the studio. I remember playing through the arrangement with the band the night before we started tracking. We all looked around after and knew that we had hit upon something, and I felt so ready in that moment to begin making the record. I’m so fond of this song and the final recording that we ended up with. It’s about learning how to trust in love again after being heartbroken so many times. That feeling when nothing seems to satisfy your heart and everything just sifts through the cracks—a yearning that is so strong that there is some kind of manic hope begging and pleading to let love win.” Watch the video below and check out the entirety of No Better Time, out now via Night Bloom Records.