To exist in the world requires finding ways to cope with what is often so much disappointment. Communication fails. Lovers leave. Attempts at connection can lead to deeper isolation, especially when you’re already marginalized by society. For multi-hyphenate artist Jemima Coulter (of Hailaker), stories offer one such way to cope. The songs on their debut solo album Grace After a Party exist in an impressionistic reverie, somewhere between a hallucination and the waking world. Populated by stories of body-swapping and clowns, Coulter’s music takes us beyond the personal, traveling from London to Perugia, to the circus and the sea. But for Coulter, stories aren’t simply an escape route, a way out of a painful reality; instead they offer a resting place for the weary traveler — a glimpse of real magic in a portrait of the surreal.