Lower Dens
| Lower Dens | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Genres | Indie pop, dream pop, shoegaze |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Labels |
Gnomonsong Ribbon Music |
| Website | lowerdens |
| Members |
Jana Hunter Geoff Graham Nate Nelson Walker Teret |
| Past members | Abram Sanders Will Adams Carter Tanton |
Lower Dens are an American indie pop band from Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The band was formed in 2010 by Jana Hunter, Geoff Graham, Abram Sanders and Will Adams. Lower Dens has released three albums: their debut on Gnomonsong and a follow up album on Ribbon Music. Their third album, Escape from Evil, was released on March 31, 2015 on Ribbon Music.
The idea for the band formed when Jana Hunter, at that time performing as a solo artist under her own name, grew tired of touring and decided to take a hiatus from the road. For her final tour before this planned hiatus, she put together a backing band. The enjoyment Hunter got from playing with a band versus performing as a solo artist gave her the idea to form Lower Dens: "During that tour, I realised that it wasn’t the touring life that I hated, but more so that the kind of music I wrote as a solo artist wasn’t something I felt entirely comfortable sharing in a performance setting. Lower Dens then was eventual result of the decision to make music with the specific intention of sharing and enjoying it with others." According to bassist Geoff Graham, the band's creative process starts with Hunter creating "song sketches" which the band finishes together: "Every song is different but we do try to make decisions democratically, and try every idea and then decide by majority what choices we make."
After playing several shows in early 2010, the band released their first album Twin Hand Movement on July 20, 2010 via Gnomonsong. Pitchfork gave the album a rating of 8.1, comparing Hunter's vocals to those of PJ Harvey and Beach House's Victoria Legrand. Dusted Magazine praised the album's lyrics, stating that they are "delivered without irony, yet self-aware enough to appreciate the obviousness."
The band began writing their sophomore album while still on tour supporting Twin-Hand Movement. The limitations of writing on the road forced Hunter to work through a laptop and a keyboard rather than the guitar, which led to the increased presence of synths on the album: "I did try to write with a guitar on headphones through a tiny amp plugged into ... the cigarette lighter of the car, but that is an extraordinarily inefficient way to write music ... I talked the band into getting laptop; we got Garage Band and a MIDI digital interface keyboard, and that’s how most of the record was written."
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