Haley Heynderickx's debut album has been long awaited in her home of Portland. Since the release of the first single, "Oom Sha La La", in 2017 she has been making waves and garnering best of and most anticipated lists from Uproxx, BIRP, NBHAP, Clunk Magazine, Various Small Flames and The Bluegrass Situation while also receiving a coveted spot on NPR's 'Slingshot' program. In their best tracks of 2017 OPB Music called "Oom Sha La La" "easily one of the year's most striking songs" while Uproxx predicted that "though this may not be a name that rings a bell at the end of 2017, it's going to be one of those ones that you'll hear everywhere in 2018."
Heynderickx's second single, "Untitled God Song", is an entrancing rumination on spirituality, focusing on the idea that perhaps there is no separation between the mundane and the cosmic, or the divine. As Heynderickx says "Growing up with a religious background, I always grappled with the idea of what God looked like. I mean this in a humorous sense. The older I get, the more convinced I am that God is just a busy mother trying to balance all the chaos around her, and I have no idea why but I do love this imagery. Maybe it's an allusion to my own mother, but please don't tell her that, she'll probably feel shy about these lyrics." Today Stereogum has an Artist To Watch interview between Heynderickx and Stephen Deusner who calls "Untitled God Song" a "deeply contemplative, occasionally hilarious, spiritually provocative meditation into the nature of the Woman Upstairs." Deusner goes on to praise Heynderickx's songwriting saying "Heynderickx doesn't write songs to present answers or offer confessions. She writes instead to pose puzzling questions: about herself, about her world, about God and reincarnated bugs and someone named Jo. That approach has made her one of the most promising artists to come out of Portland in the last few years, and it makes I Need To Start A Garden one of the most intriguing and immersive debuts of this young year."Videos