Hannah Georgas & Matt Berninger Share "Pray It Away" Duet

In September, Toronto's Hannah Georgas released her latest LP, the Aaron Dessner-produced All That Emotion on Dessner's label Brassland (Bartees Strange, Buke & Gase) and Toronto indie stalwart Arts & Crafts. The album was the best received entry in her career to date, earning a wave of positive attention from outlets like The Guardian who called the album "magisterial pop for introverts," Pitchfork, NPR, The New York Times, FADER, Stereogum, New York Magazine, Consequence of Sound and Paste among many others. Today, Georgas is sharing a new version of a track from her album that she co-wrote with Dessner called "Pray It Away," performed as a duet with The National frontman Matt Berninger.

The collaboration was born from the friendship Georgas and Berninger developed when Georgas joined The National's touring band when they were on the road in support of their album I Am Easy To Find last year, though it did not come together until this summer. On the track, which concerns living with the prejudice within families, Berninger's brooding baritone provides a perfect compliment to the Georgas calm tones that unwind over Dessner's softly glowing synthesizers.

"In a lot of ways, All That Emotion is a personal record," Georgas explains, "but Pray It Away ended up being very collaborative. I co-wrote the song with my producer Aaron Dessner, who sent me an instrumental during the time I was writing and demoing.

"A close friend of mine inspired the lyrics. She told me over dinner one night that a family member didn’t want to attend her wedding because she was marrying a woman. I wrote the song the next day using the chord progression from Aaron’s demo. It was upsetting to see my friend go through what she was dealing with at a time where she should have been celebrating.

"While Aaron and I were recording this song together, he mentioned it could be really great to ask Matt Berninger to sing on it. Ironically, it wasn’t until the pandemic hit when we were actually able to follow through with this idea, together. It’s so lovely it all worked out and we were able to make it happen in the end."

All That Emotion is out now on Arts & Crafts/Brassland. It is available for purchase here.