About two weeks ago, ruby yacht makers guild (AKA ruby yacht) quietly unveiled their group album/label comp. 37 GEMS. It features the rhyming and beat-making talents of R.A.P. Ferreira FKA milo & scallops hotel, SB The Moor, Pink Navel, safari al, Eldon Somers, Kenny Segal, and E L U C I D. Now, ruby yacht have, seemingly, added yet another extremely talented character to their ever-growing roster: Hemlock Ernst! Ernst is the rapping alias of Future Islands' frontman and life-long Hip-Hop supporter, Samuel "Sam" T. Herring. " Sam was rapping long before he joined a band and it's all he's really ever wanted to do... it's more than "occasional" for him... it's just that his sh*t blew up on a totaaally different tip and he's been riding that out like one of the best to ever do it," safari al (@s_afari_al) Tweeted Wednesday morning. Herring has been featured on Hip-Hop tracks billed as "Hemlock Ernst" alongside the likes of milo/scallops hotel, Madlib as Trouble Knows Me, Blockhead, Drew Scott & Pale Spring FKA Anna Notte, PASSAGE, Height Keech, Busdriver, Curse ov Dialect, Open Mike Eagle & Paul White, WORDS HURT, billy woods, JPEGMAFIA, and plenty more.


As legend would have it, Sam Herring & Kenny Segal first worked together in 2015 for "Souvenir" from milo's album, So The Flies Don't Come. "Me & Sam just had a moment where we clicked and I started sending him beats and around that period (2016,) he started recording some demos that went on to become the backbone of this project," Kenny Segal explained within a press release. From there on out, anytime Herring was out in LA, he and Segal would link up and before long, had amassed 6-7 then-newly recorded songs together during this initial period. "Then, life got in the way, as life tends to do, he had a new Future Islands project that they were touring for... I was working with [ ruby yacht] and billy woods and others and the project laid dormant through 2017," Kenny Segal further explained. Now, we've been treated to the first official single, "Down," attributed to Hemlock Ernst from his first proper full-length, BACK AT THE HOUSE. It's a thundering, 4+ minute slice of piano/string-accented, echo-filled Hip-Hop; further accented by the eerie, billowing refrain/pseudo-hook, "WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO? DOWN, DOWN, DOWN..."


"Down" and the entirety of BACK AT THE HOUSE were fully produced by Kenny Segal with sparse instrumental assists from his Jefferson Park Boys collaborators, Aaron "Mr." Carmack & Mike "Papi" Parvizi, as well as Los Angeles-based artist and multi-instrumentalist Ryan "PRYVT RYN" Crosby. Hemlock Ernst & Kenny Segal's BACK AT THE HOUSE will consist of 11 tracks and is, supposedly, rumored to be released Friday, October 25, 2019 on ruby yacht in conjunction with Alpha Pup Records' off-shoot imprint, The Order Label. Also, at the bottom of this very post, you'll find a Witzard-curated Spotify playlist entitled Hemlock Ernst BACK AT THE HOUSE (ruby yacht) featuring every Hemlock Ernst/Rap-adjacent release—well, what's currently available on Spotify—from Sam Herring, so far. If you can't tell, we're EXTREMELY STOKED to hear the entirety of Hemlock Ernst's first proper Hip-Hop project!!!