Send "Lower Dens " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Texas-born Jana Hunter, the talented freak-folk guitarist and singer, was the first artist to release an album on Devendra Banhart and Vetiver frontman Andy Cabic's label Gnomonsong. In all she's put out two full-length albums, one EP, and a split with Banhart, alongside contributions to other bands, including Phosphorescent and CocoRosie. Her last release was in 2007, and fans wondered where Hunter had gone until she recently started turning up at venues with a new band. The new group, a foursome based in Baltimore, immerses her elastic alto tone in a colorful mix of electric guitar, bass, and drums, yielding unhinged, dreamy rock with just the right mix of flourish and understatement. This is very much Hunter's band; anyone familiar with her work will hear the parallels between the two acts. The biggest difference between Twin-Hand Movement and Hunter's solo albums is the instrumentation: This album is more about her guitar than her voice, which is absent from a few of the songs. Both projects let their guitars go off and wander, but the lilting country twang seems to have been left behind.Instead, Lower Dens experiment with a broad range of tones, all in the service of atmosphere. They also frequently stick to lower registers and slower tempos, which at times comes off as too introspective, especially on the instrumental tracks. The same could be said of the xx's debut-- when Lower Dens are at their most spare ("Rosie" and "Plastic & Powder"), the two bands sound similar-- but in place of the xx's foggy sexual tension, Hunter and company share a wider array of emotion. When Hunter's voice appears-- often deep into tracks-- it can sound spent, alluring, hopeful, and exasperated, and the guitars are just as versatile: screeching, whining, twinkling-- they're the show-offs in the band. That said, there is a placid, warm quality to nearly every track, no matter what the guitars are up to. (For this, credit is due to producer Chris Coady, who also mixed Beach House's Teen Dream; Coady turns busy bunches of layers into an elegant bouquet.) Hunter's deep, smooth voice-- comparable to PJ Harvey's, especially on grittier tracks like "Completely Golden"-- is woven in with the least trebly of the instruments, whispery yet tensile. When it's time for the guitars to show off with elaborate arpeggios, gurgling shreds, and distant, glittery calls-and-responses, she stands back from the mic entirely, or at least gives the instruments, including her own, a long intro. Even when her lyrics are a key component of a song, she can sound (like Beach House's Victoria Legrand) a little lost in the mix, as if the force of the instruments were threatening to blow her away. The rare tracks where she's loudest are just as strong as the others: there's the slight "Truss Me", whose title is a good indication of how slow and loose the song is, and "Two Cocks", a joyous, robust potential single....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| Lower Dens is a new band, but feels like a second act. The music is reserved, but finds ways to be cutting, even as it holds back and spends most of its time in nocturnal sparseness. Twin-Hand Movement plays like the work of a group that has pulled bold moves already, made some good records, and is interested in investigating its internal rapport. Confined to basic instruments, each musician leaves space for the others. The holes in the music make little shifts in volume and twang unmissable, the way an invisible scar on your hand feels like a gash to your fingertips. I’m not sure what the rest of the Dens were doing before this, but they are a second act of sorts for Jana Hunter, who’s worked as a folk weirdster in the circles around Devendra Banhart for a while, mostly solo, mostly slacker than this. So when it comes to loudness and density of sound, this is a ratcheting up. If the others initially assembled as a backing band for Hunter, it became a full-fledged collaboration quickly, re-aligning her style, making it rigid. You can find an early version of Hunter doing the song “Completely Golden” fingerpicking on an electric. For the full band take, the same chords are shaped from rumbles and fuzz, with strict drumming that removes all traces of country bobble from the demo. There’s no law saying songwriters who’ve established a solo voice can’t retreat into a band, but it’s rare for them to drop their peculiarities in the service of the whole. Some of the song titles show traces of the let’s-try-to-be-annonying cutesies of Banhart and CoCoRosie (“Two Cocks Waving Wildly At Each Other Across a Vast Open Space, A Dark Icy Tundra”). That playing around doesn’t filter into the final songs, where the words are barely in the foreground. When words do come into focus, they’re direct and Hunter delivers them sincerely. That lack of brattiness keeps them from being mistaken for garage punk, but they share some strengths with garage contemporaries. Pretense is in check. Poesy like “Baby I get nervous / just being in your service” has the punch of Eddie Current Suppression Ring — it’s delivered without irony, yet self-aware enough to appreciate the obviousness. Like Thee Oh Sees, fragmentary songs feel complete, tossing out the superfluous verses and bridges of songwriting rules, but still stealing some power from old tricks. The tom-and-tamborine beat of “Be My Baby” might be the most hackneyed rhythm you could stick on an album in 2010, and it’s here on “A Dog’s Dick,” just as it is on so many records of the last few years. They harmonize as if they’re going for the big buildup, but one verse in, the vocals vanish, and it becomes a long fadeout of twin guitars entwining around a stair-climbing scale. “Truss Me” could be a rough take of “As Tears Go By,” as the Stones slowly cycle through the changes while Marianne Faithful tries out different words. More often, they’re skeletal, led by the bass in a dour downbeat rock....full text |
| Pastaprima |
| I guess this is just a follow up post…or maybe just a reassurance post. About a month ago I posted on Jana Hunter’s new band Lower Dens and their first single “Hospice Gates”. If you were ever a fan of Jana Hunter (and why wouldn’t you be) this track was everything you had hoped and more. The singing and touch of Jana Hunter was there and evident only with Lower Dens she is surrounded by equally impressive band parts making the emotion of the track heightened. Twin Hand Movement, Lower Dens’ debut LP doesn’t falter from the expectations since hearing the first single. This album is wall to wall goodness and a must have for this year. mp3: Lower Dens – Hospice Gates Lower Dens’ Twin Hand Movement is due out on July 20th via Gnomosong. Pre-order and preview here. Tomorrow I’ll have a post up on Jana Hunter’s brother’s project that is also pretty sweet, Inoculist. You can catch both bands (a Hunter family bonanza if you will) at the Metro Gallery here in Baltimore on August 1st....full text |
Lower Dens lyrics
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