It’s been two years since Gainesville’s Hundred Waters released their eponymous first LP, my favorite of 2012 and one of the best debuts I’ve heard in years. Since signing with the Skrillex-affiliated OWSLA label and releasing a pair of EPs (and a 7″ Yours Truly session released on Small Plates, a label which — full disclosure — I cofounded), the Floridian electronic-folk outfit has remained rather mum while touring the country and presumably recording a follow-up. Whether “Down From The Rafters” is a new single from a TBA sophomore album or just “a song for you” to celebrate Pluto’s discovery (2/18/1930), as the band suggested, mum’s still the word. But given the song’s spectacular production value, the effort put into the artwork (below) and the timing (two years?), a new album is likely on the not-too-distant horizon. Sun’s already peeking:
For bands with debuts as acclaimed and accomplished as Hundred Waters’, the hardest thing for the sophomore album to achieve is restraint. It’s the mark of immensely talented, patient (two years), controlling musicians. It’s considerately measured reflection, closed off from the external influences of expectation that could otherwise adulterate the purity of their ambition and artistic expression. As frontwoman Nicole Miglis surmises, “Only after after all the fog has long dissolved / take a little pill, drown it out in laughter / take a little pill, maybe think about it after.” “Down From The Rafters” doesn’t explode from every angle, it doesn’t scream for attention, it hardly even wants it. It creeps, hazily, foggily, as the title suggests, down reluctantly from the dusty, forgotten supports that otherwise hold it in place. It’s the anti lead single, emboldened by its subtlety, brazenly reserved, as delicate as the humid attic airspace it occupies. For a band with as perfect a debut album as 2012′s Hundred Waters, should we expect any different for 2014′s second?
How ahead of the curve is this band, and how delightfully refreshing is that?
