Album a Day: Lower Dens - Twin-Hand Movement

Lower Dens
Gnomonsong Recordings
(2010)

Time is of course fleeting, thus it should come as no surprise that music, one of two prime temporal arts (the other being cinema), is the representation of fleet. So sometimes what time needs is a moment to exist in the now while having the ability to reflect on the past and always looking to the future. This is a feeling I experienced while listening to Twin-Hand Movement, the debut album from Jana Hunter's new band Lower Dens. The first word that came to mind while listening to this album was delightful and yet I feel like to say delightful underscores the casual intensity of the songs put forth.

Each track have great movement that flows well with the previous one while existing on its own. There are more broad moments such as the opening track "Blue & Silver" or "Completely Golden" that contrast nicely with more intimate songs like the soulful "Truss Me". "Truss Me" is actually one of my favorite tracks on the album as it really displays what Jana Hunter is so good at and that's creating something that has heart but is also incredibly haunting so as to stick with you and in that sense those fleeting feelings create memory.

Lower Dens is able to layer a variety of sounds through precise musicianship that doesn't require any masturbatory moments and so everything feels very deliberate and thought out. The result is a blend of post-punk, folk, goth rock, blues, and shoegaze that allows the listener to go to a place of intense mood that I would say is influenced by the music but not pushed. I personally went to a very zen place while listening to Twin-Hand Movement but I could see this album being great for a variety of situations.

The production is really great on this album and allows the listener to exist within the aural construct that the band has created. Clearly a lot of care was put into every detail of this album from production to song-writing to even Jana Hunter's beautiful photography for the cover art and it doesn't go unnoticed.

To me one of the recurring themes of Twin-Hand Movement is an awareness of the function of time. No moments are wasted but none are glorified either. This is to say that each second of this near thirty-nine minute album is appreciated with no fat simply for the sake of padding out a song as is shown with several tracks around the two-minute and thirty second mark and others as long as six and a half minutes. So this allows each song to develop as it needs to. In that sense the songs come off closer to compositions but with a pop edge to them, like Mogwai meets The Cure.

Though there is something very understated and subtle about this album I think that it will be one of my favorite of 2010 (or perhaps because of those reasons). I highly recommend checking it out, maybe brewing yourself some tea, put on a low-light, get comfortable and just chill out. This is also an album that is probably worth investing in the LP version and hearing it on vinyl.

Favorite Tracks: Blue & Silver, A Dog's Dick, I Get Nervous, Plastic & Powder, Rosie, and Truss Me