Georgia Harmer - Eye of the Storm
Arts & Crafts
Released on August 15th, 2025
Georgia Harmer came into my radar when I found out she supported Bells Larsen in developing melodies for his recent release, Blurring Time (2025). Given the cutting impact of that supportive collaboration, I was curious to listen to Harmer’s own music knowing that an album by her was on the way. Eye of the Storm is Georgia Harmer’s sophomore album which she regards as an older sister to her debut album, Stay in Touch (2022). Their relationship is set not so much as a matter of release age, but more so of the spirit of maturity and insight that positions Eye of the Storm as an album thriving in self-reflection and understanding. Notably, the album has been workshopped for eight years given how long Harmer took to nurture the track that would become the titular song.
The self-production that goes into Eye of the Storm offers Harmer an opportunity to be intentional with the intimacy and emotionality that she puts forward as her sound’s signature. As she says of her music: “My songs tend to use my relationships with other people to uncover truths about my own experience, or to communicate something unspoken to them.” Thus, vulnerability, interdependence, and gentleness in the passing of time remain at heart throughout the album. The starting track “Can We Be Still” kicks things off with a soft groover over which Harmer reminisces on the coming and going of people over time while grasping at a lifetime of closeness, where the titular lyric lingers for a moment to slow down in all these motions.
The album’s titular track, which was also released as the album announcement single, reflects on what it means to hold someone’s emotional weight with a beautiful metaphor of holding one’s breath to let someone else breathe as a blurring of lines between oneself and another — to me this lyrical work speaks volumes as I find it reminiscent of Anne Carson’s discussion of breath as a connective fabric of life in the Ancient Greek poetry, philosophy, and medicine throughout her studies of Sappho in Eros the Bittersweet. Quite poetically, Harmer intimates that “I” fall into question when the other as “you” is suffering or withdrawing to obscurity, as she writes “I need some clarity / As to what became of me” and “Do you wanna be unknown / Are you filled with pain / Well I won’t amount to anything / If you’re still suffering.” Musically, the instrumental is lush and subtle in letting Harmer sing these words while taking up intensity during instrumental breaks to shine.
“Little Light” has a muted instrumental production, sticking closer to the mids to lower ends of the backing guitar which contrast with the brightness from “Eye of the Storm.” This mutedness can be seen as dimness akin to the little light Harmer sings to, as the song hits a gentle guidance into realizing that she has what she needs to find some light in her life in still moments. Ironically, “Slow Down” picks up the albums pace into a more energetic track showing off Harmer’s singing as inflects so fluidly throughout the verses’ lyrics. The song sifts through passing vignettes of her mother’s life (Mary Harmer from Weeping Tiles along with her aunt Sarah Harmer and her father Gord Tough). Similarly, tracks like “Farmhouse” and “Time to Move On” take this angle of unearthing the past in the present, finding some kind of reconciliation. “Last Love” explores finding a romantic forever in spite of the future’s uncertainty with a slow fingerpicked guitar and minimal instrumental that allows Harmer to sing stretched out vocal lines. The song includes a long instrumental break that lets the song simmer down into the final verse. “Hazel vs. The Coyote” takes on a fluid narrative perspective around the grief of her aunt losing her two cats, at most alluded to in the lyric “Living alone / Is someone there / Down the basement stairs / Just two little ghosts / Making a joke.” And “Take It On” is seen as a song that gets at the bigger picture of what the album is about thematically while offering one of the best tracks in the album with a beautiful composition and vocal performances — its chorus and bridge are just as astonishing as how hard the outro hits.
As an album that allows dust to settle in creaking floor boards, the rocking of chairs, and homey untreated acoustics, Eye of the Storm is an invitation to a personal space, almost confessional in scope. There is a mundane and honest beauty in ragged edges that Harmer is able to handle with care. Now that Eye of the Storm is out, you may be excited to find out that Harmer is coming on tour right away here. Harmer’s tour kicks off October 30 in Hamilton, Ontario — you will definitely find me at The Aviary on November 26 for that show.
