Hachiku – the musical project of Anika Ostendorf – has dropped a new single, ‘Keep on Swimming’. It’s taken from their sophomore album, The Joys of Being Pure at Heart, which is due February 28 (via Marathon Artists) and includes the previously shared ‘Time Wasted Worrying’ and ‘Tell Your Friends You Love Them’. Check out the new song below.
‘Keep on Swimming’ features harpist Mary Lattimore as well as violin and cello from the classical music group The Newmarket Collective. “During the pandemic I was trying to make up my mind whether I’d be more successful swimming from Australia back to Germany or digging a tunnel through the earth – this song is the resulting love letter to my family back home and everyone I’ve ever missed,” Ostendorf explained. “There’s a certain self-inflicted heartache in the repeated goodbyes and the masochism of choosing to move to the other side of the world – always wondering and worrying, yet holding onto the belief that it was for good reason.”
The song’s accompanying video, filmed in Berlin, was directed by Tom Mannion and Caity Moloney. “I really wanted to shoot the video back home in Germany – the semi-bleak concrete architecture feels nostalgic to me as it reminds me of my younger self growing up just outside of Cologne,” Ostendorf added.
