Hemi Hemingway release new single and video for "(To Be) Without You"

New Zealand based Hemi Hemingway, the project of Shaun Blackwell, returns with new single and video “(To Be) Without You”, his first new release since his acclaimed debut LP Strangers Again was released in August 2023. After returning home to his native New Zealand following the release of his acclaimed ‘60s crooner pop debut EP The Lonely Hunter in 2021, Hemi Hemingway aka Shaun Blackwell started digging into an eighties treasure trove on Strangers Again, a road he continues down with “(To Be) Without You”. Watch the video below and listen via Spotify, Apple Music etc here.

After making his debut in 2021 Hemi Hemingway and selling out shows in London and opening for Night Beats in Sweden, Hemi Hemingway opted to return home to New Zealand where he’s alternated live performances - both headline shows and supported slots to the likes of Kurt Vile and A. Savage of Parquet Courts - with working on new music. “(To Be) Without You” is a first taste from the recording sessions of his upcoming second full-length, due next year, with the new single being a lament about a marriage falling apart. An emotional journey that captures that worry and the feeling of longing to have that place and that time back again, to do things differently, “(To Be) Without You” swells as Blackwell’s vocals soar over a pouncing beat and wailing guitars. 

Hemingway says “With ‘(To Be) Without You’ I was thinking a lot about a trip I took to Greece in late 2022. In hindsight, there were signs that my life was really about to change; I was moving back to New Zealand, and I couldn’t admit it but my marriage was about to end. When I was writing this song the energy of it reminded me of Greece - especially Athens; the heat on the stone at night, the dark and empty alleys, beautiful people moving everywhere and lots of exposed skin. There was a mysterious timelessness to the city; it felt like a place that knows everything about you the moment you step foot there. I was carrying a hidden sadness while I was there, and it knew.”

“(To Be) Without You” arrives together with a video directed by Adam Joseph Browne, with Hemingway haunted by The Apparition; “The idea for the ‘(To Be) Without You’ video actually came about one morning while I was on a run; I looked up at this stadium light in the park where I was running and noticed that it wasn’t a perfect cylinder, but that it had many small sides. It towered above and it really reminded me of a Greek column. I realised I was seeing these flashes of my old life in amongst the landscape of my new life in New Zealand, and had been for a while. In my mind I’d been seeing this dark, shadowy figure stalking me (Adam (the director) and I call her The Apparition) - who was played so perfectly by Kelsey Magan - and I realised that she was this personification of my unprocessed feelings around my separation and leaving London. The video depicts me trying to cope with life while being stalked by The Apparition, and becoming more aware of her until she makes me face her; and only through that confrontation do I really come out better off.”

“(To Be) Without You” is out now via PNKSLM Recordings. Expect more music from Hemi Hemingway soon.