Hectorine’s Sarah Gagnon calls up the spirit of the ancient Sumerian warrior goddess Inanna to explain the tumult that surrounded the making of Arrow of Love, her third full-length album, out May 23 on Take a Turn Records.

In Mesopotamian myth, the goddess descends into the underworld to learn the secrets of the chthonic realm. As she passes through each of the seven gates of hell, she is forced to relinquish a piece of her queenly armor, jewels, and robes.

She arrives naked at the throne of her sister Ereshkigal, who kills her and hangs her corpse on a hook on the wall. After three days Inanna is rescued, revived, and returned to her kingdom, but she is pursued by demons who demand that someone take her place in the underworld. When she discovers that her beloved shepherd Dumuzi has not mourned her death, she sacrifices him.

Hectorine’s latest album tells a lower key tale of death and rebirth, encompassing a period in which Gagnon lost a job and ended a relationship under the shadow of a modern plague and raging wildfires, retreating into enforced solitude until it was possible to emerge again.

“You certainly don't just become who you are overnight,” she says. “You go through trials and tribulations to get there.” The story, which she encountered through an online literature class with poet Ariana Reines, took on a special resonance for her as she fought through pandemic-induced loneliness. “During the pandemic, especially that first year, a lot of us went through a kind of hell — there were so many unknowns, so many protests, so many fires, there was so much fear. For me, it was a time where I had no choice but to face my demons.”

Arrow of Love recounts this process of initiation in chronological order, from the marimba-clinking opener “Is Love an Illusion?” through the solemn, organ-laden desolation of Joan of Arc-themed “No Hallelujah” to the armor-clad ebullience of the title track, near the end, as life and love reassert their pull, but the album ends with a hint of trepidation on “Slip Through My Fingers.” Gagnon asserts, “A friend once told me that when Joni Mitchell left Graham Nash she did it with a note that read, ‘Graham, if you hold the grains of sand too tightly in your hand, they’ll slip through your fingers.’ I wrote that song in one sitting with that breakup letter in mind.”

And yet, though the subject matter is heavy, the music is not. Gagnon’s velvety contralto — if you think she sounds a bit like Christine McVie, you’re not the first — weaves with assurance among trance-like dream pop architectures. Fleetwood Mac’s late career album Tango in the Night was a touchstone as she worked in the studio. Other key influences included Judie Tzuke, Leonard Cohen, Yoko Ono, Labyrinth-era Bowie, Bridget St. John, and Peter Gabriel.
Gagnon says that she made a conscious step away from the folk-leaning sounds of her 2019 debut self-titled album when she recorded the second, Tears, in 2021. “When I started recording these songs for the third album, I brought back some of the elements of the first record like mellotron flute, acoustic guitar, and harpsichord,” she says. “But there’s also a lot of 12-string, electric piano, and saxophone on this record, as well as a Korg Wavestation that really holds it together.”

Gagnon wrote “Everybody Says,” the second song on Arrow of Love, on piano in a particularly dark period of 2020. “That’s the saddest song I’ve ever written,” Gagnon admits. “It’s ultimately about the disconnect between the truth, which everyone else can see, and what you choose to believe when the truth is too hard to bear.” But the song blossomed in the studio as the arrangement took shape with gorgeous, floating textures of keyboards and an extended saxophone solo. “Even though the lyrics are so downbeat, I feel like there's hope in the arrangement,” she adds.

The zenith of hope, however, is the penultimate song on the record, “Take a Chance with Me.” With sparkling 12-string, melodic Rhodes, ample glockenspiel, three-part harmonies, and an invitation to a transoceanic voyage, the song is imbued with newfound optimism as Gagnon intones, “Say you’ll come with me across the great blue sea / And we could build a home and sing in harmony.”

Gagnon has been making music as Hectorine since 2016 and has released two previous studio full-lengths and a live album. For Arrow of Love, she worked with Geoff Saba of East Oakland’s Itinerant Home studio; he co-produced, engineered, and mixed the album, while J.J. Golden mastered it. In addition to Saba, who played multiple instruments during the recording sessions, long-time collaborator Max Stanley played guitar, as he has on her two previous albums, Jon Wujcik played drums, Joel Robinow added keyboards and backup harmonies, and Betsy Gran contributed backup harmonies. For her live band, Gagnon will tap Max Shanley on lead guitar, Betsy Gran on keyboards, Geoff Saba on bass, Al Miner on drums, Tika Hall on auxiliary percussion, and Jeanne Oss on saxophone.