Hermitess is the project of an aging and slightly reclusive witch, dreaming simultaneously in music and images. Sonically, layered orchestral textures, harmonic voices, and pedal driven magic, all conjuring a fleeting fever dream.
Live Performances currently include:
Jennifer Crighton, Chris Dadge, Keith Rodger & Richard Gallant
and sometimes an extended community of musical collaborators that might include:
Clayton Smith, Clea Foofat, Nathan Godfrey, Danny Vescarelli, Aria Janzen, Shara Raska, Julia Gunst, Randee-Lee Ross, Erin Rudling, Aimee-Jo Benoit, Melissa McWilliams, Jolene Toner, Laura Reid, Melyssa Nielsen, Amanda Bassi, Rebecca Bruton, Jeremy Gignoux, Foon Yap, Matt Swann, Eric Hamlin, Kenna Burima and others...
In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, Hermitess honours the land of which she works and acknowledges Moh’kinsstis and the traditional Treaty 7 territory and oral practices of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. Finally, we acknowledge all Nations, indigenous and non, who live, work and play and help us steward this land, honour and celebrate this territory.
Photograph by Heather Saitz
PERFORMANCES
2025
December 12 - Aviary,Edmonton AB, w/ Aaron Parker & Brenna Lowrie
November 8 - Latern Church, NEWWORKS, Calgary AB, w/ Kathleen Yearwood & Michael Pisaro
October 3 - High Line Brewing, Calgary AB, w/ Ora Cogan & One Leg One Eye, Calgary, AB.
September 28 - Badlands Art Department, Drumheller AB, details TBD
September 7- Purple City, Block Party, Edmonton AB
September 6 - Swampfest, Regina SK
July 5 - Owl Acoustic Lounge, Lethbridge AB, w/ Clover Overboard
June 18 - Sled Island Music & Arts Festival, Central United Church w/ SANAM & Mary Lattimore
May 1 - Album Release Show Highland Brewing, Calgary, AB. w/ Swanherds & Taylor Jade
April 16 - Ship & Anchor Pub, Calgary, AB. w/ Guests
Jan 28 - Palomino Smokehouse & Bug Incision, Calgary, AB. w/ Mary Ocher (Berlin) & Secreted Language
Feb 8 - Cold Bones Festival, Drumheller AB. w/ Various artists.
PAST DATES
Hermitess
by Hermitess
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Hermitess
Artwork, Costume & Installation
Photograph by Caitlind Brown
2025 - Green Blade Costumes and Video Performance
The Green Blade Mummers costumes Designed by Jennifer Crighton and crafted with participating Dancers.
The labour intensive costumes were made by looping a variety of materials through netted fabric, and designed to mimic the landscape in the unpredictable season of an Alberta Spring. The performance suggested the role that fools play in bringing people through darkness, and in particular a long prairie winter. Inspiration was drawn from global mummer traditions, and the legend of the Celtic Goddess of storms and winter the Cailleach.
The costumes were worn for a dance performed at the site of the Split Rock Glacial erratic which was filmed and featured in the Green Blade music video.
“Death” hand embroidery by Jennifer Crighton, Photographed by Jennifer Crighton
On the theme of Death & The Fool, elements of the Album design and its accompanying imagery drew inspiration from the tarot and folk custom connected to Jennifer’s familial history. The skeleton rides a Mari Lwyd, a character from Welsh folklore. Chasing the horse and rider is a portrait of the artists beloved dog, named after her Scottish grandfather Alistair passed away in the days following the albums May 1st release, an unexpected delay in the album’s vinyl pressing allowed Jennifer to add him to the final artwork.
Hermitess Installation - The New Gallery X Sled Island
Installation - The New Gallery x Sled Island 2016
In 2016 Hermitess Partnered with The New Gallery to present an immersive sound and video installation space during the Sled Island Festival.
The Gallery housed a video installation with technical support provided by Binder Productions, The two channel video projection depicted a solitary Hermitess navigating various landscapes, walking into the ocean, through deep snow, along a river.
The space also played an extended version of the Hermitess record, with a unique installations soundscape prepared and composed by John Hornack.
Two handwoven “Orkney” chairs made from local grasses were placed in the Gallery for viewers to sit in.
During the festival Hermitess also performed a special set in the space.
Tarot cards:
Hermitess - photo by Jennifer Allyson
Tower - Illustration by Geneva Haley
Celestial - Illustration by Paterson Hodgson
Ace of Cups - Illustration by Kiara Albina
Tarot Cards
Each musical release by Hermitess is accompanied by and artwork commissioned by a different visual artist. The Deck of cards functions as a physical download card, and an ongoing and ever-expanding edition which houses the music and story of the project as it continues to change and progress.
Performance Garment created by Jennifer Crighton, Genevieve Larsen & Edwin Isford
Performance Garment 2023
In 2023 Hermitess partnered with pattern drafting expert Genevieve Larsen and artist and fashion designer Edwin Isford and together they made a custom performance garment.
The piece was designed as a play on the angelic connotations often associated with harp musicians. A close inspection reveals fabric with darker vein-like threads running through it. A large pleated ruffle structures the garment, creating a floating shape around the arms and head of the performer.
In performances, the transparency of the garment works like a screen for light, and the shapes and forms accentuate the movements of the player.
Press
Death & the Fool feels like it borrows from centuries far removed by our own, its folkloric quality imbuing it with a timelessness that traverses everything from the Great American Songbook to Guillame de Machaut. In addition to the organic, living-and-breathing quality to Crighton's compositions, there's also a ghostly feel in the creaking hurdy-gurdy motifs and minor-key woodwind melodies.
Pocketed with all kinds of unique sounds that all somehow work together, despite their extreme differences, this album is a well-constructed singular unit, displaying tracks like little interpreted scenes of Crighton’s life. You might not expect a hand sculpted psych-folk concept album in 2025, but here we are, and it’s brilliant.
- RECORD CRATES UNITEDIt’s a sonic disruption to almost anything else you’ve ever heard, and the whole thing unfolds like a secret garden coming to life after a long, harsh winter, cracking through the Earth bloom by bloom, branch by branch, song by song.
an album of appropriately desolation-evoking, nature-inspired songs for her debut as Hermitess. Akin to the austere spookiness of Chelsea Wolfe or the more subdued moments of Myrkur, Crighton creates her haunted, distant atmospheres by blending her voice with her harp, sometimes cloaked in waves of distortion
- ALL MUSIC