MANY RECORDS pay tribute to lost loves and departed friends, but Portland shoegaze three-piece Haste’s debut full-length, Annabelle, is named for someone frontwoman Jasmine Wood met in a book.
“When I was 13, I read the diary of Anne Frank for the first time,” Wood says. “I immediately discovered that we were the exact same age and we had the same birthday, June 12. I read it every day after school and started to get excited about each entry, as if we were friends.... When the diary finally ended, I was a complete mess. I cried to my mom for hours and became obsessed and sad. I knew why it ended, and since it’s a diary, it just stops at the entry when she is taken by the Nazis.... In her diary, she writes ‘Dear Kitty’ to begin each entry. So I spent about three years writing in my own diary, ‘Dear Annabelle.’ Annabelle meant Anne Frank to me, even though her real name is Anne-Marie.”