For Ora Cogan, this damaged world is not yet beyond repair

It feels like no piece of horrible news is truly shocking anymore, in a reality where government and corporations invest heavily in the violence against women, people of colour, children, and the working class to steal their land and turn a profit. Hard Hearted Woman recognises this ache of futility, its words grabbing us by the shoulders to reassure us that the cruelty does not go unnoticed. But it also aims to transform the pain we feel on an individual level into something communally positive. As she explains to Best Fit over video chat, her intention with the record was to speak out against a system that seeks to divide us.

“There are mechanisms to make us feel like we don't belong to the earth, that we aren't accountable to each other, or we're not connected to each other or the water and the land,” she says. “But there’s something in music and the connection that people have to art that can, at times, feel like real community. We can get people together in a real space to do something that feels meaningful, even if every day it feels harder to do that.”

Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture

In its own witchy, theatrical, and melancholic way, Hard Hearted Woman is Cogan’s most direct record yet, but “it’s not a concept album” she clarifies; there are no characters, no story arcs, no overarching theme that puts all the songs in dialogue with each other.

Since the release of her previous record, Formless, the folk artist’s life has been weathered by an uprooting to Nanaimo, British Columbia, experiencing grief and loss, and watching the world around her turn against her friends and threaten the diverse makeup of her new home. Her music, in turn, grapples with the absurdity of everyday life – the irrationality of human beings that makes them capable of both falling in love and committing gross acts of violence. “Hard heartedness” evokes a real disenchantment with society, and the woman at the center of the record doesn’t shy away from her disappointment. “Being a ‘hard hearted woman’ these days is just… existing,” she says.

As an environmental advocacy journalist in Nanaimo, she witnessed how the Native community, the queer community, and the women in her life struggled to fight against violent policies yet remained resilient in their goals. What she considers “basic adult responsibility” – taking care of the environment, looking out for each other, helping each other find food and shelter – is being callously robbed from us from people with power. “They're trying to take away women's rights in general, but what is it that people hate so much about each other?” Even more pressed, she asks, “What the hell is wrong with us?”

But Cogan insists that resilience is people’s greatest power. Even in the album’s opening track “Honey”, the “hard hearted-ness” she explores has nothing to do with turning herself away from the pains of the world. In fact, it’s seeking out ways to feel more alive than ever to protect herself from breaking down. The gentle folk-rock track, as well as its smoky bar-themed music video directed by Paloma Ruiz-Hernandez, equates silk stockings and high heels to armour, and a night at the dance club to a group healing ritual that burns away the sadness of the world. “With the album, I’m mostly just feeling the pain a lot,” she adds. “I'm sure that’s not a very original experience these days, but I also want to try to figure out what I can do to make other people feel good or happy, even for a minute. I’d like to be able to provide some kind of catharsis.”

Perhaps most notable in Hard Hearted Woman is the quick easing of tension felt in tracks like “Limits”, “Love You Better”, and “Believe in the Devil”, which swap out the Twin Peaks-y gothic psych-rock band for an easy, warm country one – a big, almost joyful band moment that could liven up any bar. “A lot of the record is really about getting together with my friends and playing music,” she admits. “Turning up to venues or just going out and seeing what's happening with your friends… just trying not to fall apart.”

Perhaps most notable in Hard Hearted Woman is the quick easing of tension felt in tracks like “Limits”, “Love You Better”, and “Believe in the Devil”, which swap out the Twin Peaks-y gothic psych-rock band for an easy, warm country one – a big, almost joyful band moment that could liven up any bar. “A lot of the record is really about getting together with my friends and playing music,” she admits. “Turning up to venues or just going out and seeing what's happening with your friends… just trying not to fall apart.”

She credits much of the new record’s sound to her band, who she praises for their consistency, talent, uniqueness, and openness to connect. Whether it’s her drummer and “clown jazz enthusiast” Finn Smith, guitarist and “lesbian icon” Nancy Pittet, longtime co-producer and folk music lover David Perry, or “the savant” Tom Deis, she insists that her creative process for Hard Hearted Woman came from group work. She continues, “There's a feeling of levity, maybe a similar spirit that I've learned from all of them too of softness, kindness, and belief in each other.”

While her community offered vital support during the songwriting and vocal recording, Cogan prefers to work through that foundational process alone. “I don't want anybody else really involved in that,” she says. “I just need to go through it and torture myself until I surrender to it or feel like it's the right thing.” That was the hardest part of making the album, she later expresses, admitting that her lyrics often brought her to tears and made her feel extremely vulnerable. “But I think that the thing that saves it is that a lot of them ended up being transformative,” she continues.

“Whether it's going towards the light or going towards the pain, or having that intention to want my community to be okay, or wanting to heal my heart or grieve – the purpose is to transform my own relationship with pain, and hopefully by going inwards and sharing that with people, it helps to find those pathways to transform our relationship with being together.”

Cogan and her band are getting ready to tour in the UK, Europe, and the Western coast of North America, and they’re excited to be taking an unconventional approach. “We’ve got local acts opening for us for all the tours in the UK and Ireland,” she explains, praising the loaded bill of experimental bands playing one night in each city. She name-drops the solo metal act Sophrosyne out in Bristol, as well as the Sheffield-based medieval folk goth fit Slug Milk as two particular acts that, while different from her “sad girl crooning”, still find a home in her world.

It was difficult to organise, she says, but holding fast to the ethos of Hard Hearted Woman, it made perfect sense to highlight her vast network of fascinating friends. “These moments feel like the enzymes that are able to metabolise what's happening and just get through some of the anger and cognitive dissonance,” she concludes. “They’re obviously not the answer to all our problems, but in general, music can be a tool figuring out what the answer is and moving forward in a more tangible way. I think it helps to feel like love’s still around.”

Cogan ends Hard Hearted Woman on a delightfully warm note with “Too Late”, a short and tender acoustic guitar song she calls an “ode to friendship.” Inspired by getting older and meeting the next generation of punk rockers – the artist once met Die Spitz at a bar, and she was taken by their rambunctious enthusiasm and insistence on calling her “Mother!!!!!” – she wanted to write a song that sounded like tucking someone into bed for the night.

“It's kind of what we did with ‘Is Anything Wrong?’, which is the last song off Formless,” she says. “It’s like… I know everything's post-apocalyptic as fuck right now, but I'm still just going to help you all hang in there.”