Tagged: lowerdens + janahunter

You'll doubtless already be only too aware of Baltimore's insatiable proclivity for dream-pop – go figure. Or rather, go find a Beach House review devoid of the term dream or any given synonym thereof. Still searching, and indeed I've been scouring both high and low for something to if not shatter the mould entirely, then at to at least reset its shape a touch. And lo and behold, call off the inquisition for right before us we've Celebration – a Maryland sextet again trading in the nebulous and loosely oneiric, [...]

Geçen yıldan yazılmamış konser/seyahat kalmasın motivasyonu var (ve bu bize bir Kopenhag gezi yazısı getirecek) ama  Lower Dens  konserini yazmadan rahat edememem yalnız bundan değil. Teksas’ta doğup Baltimore’a göç eden müzisyen  Jana Hunter ‘ın 2010’da kurduğu Lower Dens, ilk albümleri  Twin-Hand Movement ‘tan beri çamurlu sound’uyla kulağımda dönüp duruyor. Davulun lokomotif gibi ilerleyen ritminin etrafında salınan efektli gitarlar ve synth’in yarattığı ses coğrafyası hayli çekici. İçimdeki yerleri son albümleri  Nootropics ‘in etkileyiciliğiyle daha da sağlamlaştı. Hatta albümün single’larından  Propagation  2012’de en çok dinlediğim şarkılardan oldu. Haliyle konser haberini aldığımda da keyiften dört köşe oldum. Lower Dens öncesi sahne alan [...]

Nootropics is an album I regret not reviewing when it first hit the shelves. It's heavy and personal. It lingers and haunts you like a bad decision, bad behavior in general. It's the album I always wish Radiohead would have made, or maybe The Motels already made this record? Its music is filled with sparse atmospheric guitars and electronic colors. But no matter how uplifting and massive songs like "Brains", "Propagation" and "Lamb" are, Jana Hunter has a way of making you feel like you could have done more - as her music and word deconstruct your personality into [...]

• LowerDens - Propagation

“ “Music shouldn’t be free. It shouldn’t even be cheap. If you consume all the music you want all the time, compulsively, sweatily, you end up having a cheap relationship to the music you do listen to. In turn, this kind of market makes for musicians who are writing with the burden of having to get your attention, instead of writing whatever they’d write if they were just following artistic impulses. It’s increasingly difficult and un-rewarding to write music that is considered, patient, and simple* when the market increasingly demands music that is easy, thoughtless, and careless.” [...]

Lower Dens + Pet Clinic + Ursa Major U Pitt / 09.25.2012 / 8:00 / $8 (adv) $10 (doors) Words by Brendan Lower Dens make music like no other band. Our jobs as music writers require us to draw connections, categorize bands, assign sounds to certain sub-genres. I can't do that with Lower Dens , and it's not for lack of trying. The best I can say is that their music is captivating, flushed with [...]

One of the great aspects of Lower Dens is how careful and studied their brand of experimental pop music comes across, yet if you follow the band on Twitter, or watch videos such as “Candy”, you’ll immediately get the sense that they are total smart-assess who love to display humor — and humanity — in every situation. The more I think about the band as these witty human beings the more I want to go back and listen to Nootropics from a completely different perspective.

[directed by Alan Resnick + Noah Collier ]

Somewhere across town, a throng of exceptionally well-put-together hipsters and "youth" were throwing their flannel selves around to local media darlings Japandroids. Meanwhile, at the Media Club, an entirely different group of hipsters, respectably bespectacled art types, gathered for Baltimore's Lower Dens . I'd call it a draw if I hadn't have seen the 'droids before, and if I didn't think the Lower Dens were FULL OF WIN. The gig came with extras: an odd but funny pre-opener-opener by New Yorktimore comedian Alan Resnick ,  who has a thing for his own face and has built [...]

Nauseating splatters of discoball speckle the floors of Madame Jojo's as fairy lights add yet more glisten beyond an arsenal of elaborate equipment. 'Tis a setting as picturesque as any opaque, barely starry and scarcely black night draped over the capital although this evening's White Heat rundown is a little less idyllic. It's an odd combination of flavours and one you assume few would have the necessarily acquired taste for. For having Jana Hunter's eruditely wistful Baltimore clan Lower Dens slopped on the same plate as Porcelain Raft and Trust is a little like the sonic [...]

Baltimore dream-rock band Lower Dens ' sophomore album, Nootropics , eschews traditional pop themes (love, death, overcoming adversity, etc.) for more cerebrally challenging confines. The album, whose title refers to substances that enhance a human's cognitive powers, focuses heavily (but not solely) on transhumanism, a scientific movement that calls for technology to improve mankind's phsyical, emotional, and psychological capabilities. This may not result in easily absorbed romantic odes, but this context is perfectly suited for the band's swirling, expansive blend of darkly tinged pop music. [...]

Baltimore's Lower Dens can set up and take down their equipment very efficiently, and probably anywhere. After years of touring, Jana Hunter and bassist Geoff Graham have also realized a pretty high level of vocal ... read more �

I fell in love with Lower Dens' first album, Twin-Hand Movement , a couple of years ago. The guitar fuzz, the rhythm, Jana Hunter's voice as an instrument - it all worked so well. The band's just-released sophomore album, Nootropics , takes a different approach musically: Synthesizer, atmosphere, repetitive electronic sound. "Some of the records that really influenced us during the making of this record would obviously be krautrock records," Hunter told Stereogum last month. "I listened to  Radioactivity  by Kraftwerk pretty much constantly [...]

[Photos by acidjack] Before coming out for an almost-unheard-of-at- Glasslands three-song encore, frontwoman Jana Hunter of Lower Dens stepped out from behind the keys and mic stand to stand in front of the monitors, among the crowd, and close the main set with the Houston musician Arthur Bates' "Hours". And why the hell not? Though known for being a bit reserved onstage, Hunter has watched her Baltimore-based band be anointed an "It" band in the city that decides such things. She certainly has nothing to be self-conscious about, if she ever did. Not [...]

Before today, I was pretty certain Lower Dens was fronted by an awkward looking dude with strange fashion sense. From this video and clips of their SXSW performances earlier in the year, I had no clear idea that Jana Hunter was a lady. Now that her hair has grown out a bit, it's harder to confuse: Regardless, the simple clip for "Brains" is a beautiful exercise in restraint. The minimalist aesthetic, reflected in this clip and all of Nootropics is wonderful [...]

Photos by Nina Mashurova A few days after playing Great Scott, Baltimore's LOWER DENS drop their second LP, Nootropics, today –- a formidable combination of ideas, sounds, and people ...which... Support indie media! Read the rest at thephoenix.com . . .

To designate the debut Twin-Hand Movement and the follow-up Nootropics suggests, if nothing else, a confidence in full bloom. Named after smart drugs and nutraceuticals aimed at aiding in the enhancement of intelligence, if the title suggests Jana Hunter has furthered hers through forming Lower Dens , growing into its skin and whereby surrounding herself with merchants of harmonies to haunt even the most equilibrated of minds then its contents numbering ten intimate she's furthered functions sonic as well as academic. We've already experienced so-called 'single' Brains [...]

In the early half of the 2000s, everyone grew out their hair and beards and folk music came back hard. Devendra Banhart led a merry band of pranksters in cheap-looking expensive jeans, and made it ... read more �

>> Alta Mira heretofore in these electronic pages warranted only a sidelong mention as billmates with local dream pop heroes The Hush Now at PA's Lounge a year ago . But we enjoyed their set and made a mental note to keep an eye on them, and we're glad we did, as the Clifton Park, NY-based indie rock concern has just released to the wilds of the Internerds one of the most delightful songs of the year, a rare, perfect pop song. "Good Enough" delivers bright guitar pop smoothed over lightly percolating bass [...]

I Wrote About Lower Dens' "Propagation" at Aquarium Drunkard.

The first insight into the return of Jana Hunter's Lower Dens , Brains, proved a compulsively addictive listen and one that still commands attention today although now we've Propagation that may change somewhat. At least our impression of forthcoming LP Nootropics (alongside other formats, a rather sumptuous-sounding 'limited edition gold colored double LP with black swirl' is expected April 30th via Domino imprint Ribbon Music ) has been gently expanded... With a more memorable swell of a hook to latch onto than its predecessor, it's a typically sulky number from the Baltimore quartet that's awash with [...]