lowhours

“Really ethereal & sounds so good. Gets you hooked straight away!” - BBC Introducing 

“Such a distinctive and detailed piece. The imagination that has gone into the layering of the parts & the interweaving individual lines is highly evident, resulting in a track I feel inclined to lose myself in. This song feels so dreamy, like watching snow fall in slow motion. It paints pictures in your head as you listen, giving you little visuals with every note. The melody has a unique touch that makes it stand out, & it’s also really catchy in a gentle way. The husky falsetto vocals are mesmerising; soft but powerful at the same time. If you’re into music that feels ethereal & atmospheric, this is the kind of track you’d want to add straight to your playlist.” - Fresh On The Net

“So rich & lush" - Amazing Radio

"A lush, hypnotic track 'Hemisphere' takes inspiration from psych-rock soundscapes & packages it into a dreamy, reflective piece of music. On 'Hemisphere' Dorey embraces the instrumental ambience of Dungen & combines this with the experimental psychedelia of Unknown Mortal Orchestra to create a cerebral, atmospheric sound as familiar as it is complex." - Fortitude Mag

“Slick, psych-rock stunner ‘Hemisphere’ is a prowling, cerebral, & at times haunting piece of music that builds a spacey atmosphere throughout the epic six-plus minutes of hazy goodness.” - The Vinyl District

“An ambitious cinematic slice of Shoegazy Alt Rock with layers of reverberant guitars, synths & voices including some impressive falsetto features & a general air of dreaminess & ideas developing almost independently of one another but contributing to a cohesive whole.” - Trust The Doc

“A song that subverts the typical pop formula feeling constantly in bloom; intriguingly unpredictable yet unerringly catchy.” - Find Your Sounds

‘Hemisphere’ is my debut release under the name Lowhours & marks my first real attempt at a solo project. It came about partly out of necessity (the pandemic effectively ended the band I was in at the time) & partly as a result of getting older. Once you start creeping towards your 30s, the people around you naturally move toward different priorities & responsibilities in life, which I completely understand & respect. There’s more freedom to live the ‘band life’ in your 20s - jumping in a van & living precariously with very little money. That being said, I wanted to find a way to keep making music without having to rely on anyone else to do so. Lowhours was born out of that desire for longevity & independence.

The song (hemisphere) started as a rough jam with an old friend & longtime collaborator, Ben Ysselmuiden. I’d been diving into synths & drum machines & experimenting with more electronic sounds. A couple of the chord progressions & the early foundations of the song came from that session. I thought it was okay at the time but something wasn’t quite clicking & I didn’t see the full potential in it, so it sat untouched on my hard drive for ages. Sometime around 2022/23, I discovered the OK Computer MiniDisc sessions. That album’s always been a masterpiece to me but hearing how unremarkable some of those early ideas were made me realise that even those songs had to go through years of careful development & refinement to reach their full potential. That shifted my mindset & I became more patient & started revisiting old ideas with the belief that they too could be sculpted into something more meaningful over time.

During that period I was producing a lot for other artists & I learned how to apply that same discipline to my own work. I began producing, directing & editing myself with more subjectivity & purpose. The breakthrough moment came when I was messing around on a new guitar one day & stumbled upon the main riff, followed quickly by the pre-chorus progression. I immediately recognised they’d fit perfectly with that old synth jam from my session with Ben. From there I blended the two worlds, the earlier electronic version & the newer guitar-driven “psych” version, keeping only elements that elevated the track & ditching everything else. It was a process of delicate refinement, beyond anything I’d done before.

Musically I was deep into Currents by Tame Impala again at the time, which inspired the fusion of psychedelic rock, synth pop & 60s/70s pop bass lines. I was also revisiting Johnny Marr’s guitar work & experimenting with the delay driven polyrhythms that are all over The Smile’s guitar work, which definitely filtered into the song.

Fast forward a year & I found myself emailing Julien Barbagallo (Tame Impala’s live drummer) after seeing a post of his on IG offering to record drums for other people’s songs. I sent him the demo with my rough drums on it & asked him if he could turn it into something better, which obviously he fucking nailed. This gave me the motivation to really push forward with the song & by extension, the solo endeavour.

Julien recorded the drums remotely over in Australia - once I had his drum stems, I re-tracked everything with the best sounds & performances I could possibly get, whilst working within the limitations of my little home studio. Only then did I start to think about vocals or lyrics. I had some of the melodies locked in already - I tend to write vocal melodies in my head first, then adjust or expand on them as needed… Depending on how the melodies translate in 'real life' & how well it actually works with my voice in practice.

The lyrics began as loose phrases that just flowed well. Those initial stages came much more from a place of it ‘just sounding good’ & being rhythmically complimentary to the music, as opposed to being tied to any specific meaning. Looking back there is a mix of personal reflection, subtle social commentary & apocalyptic imagery in the lyrics that links back to the original idea I was playing with. I had this concept of an astronaut watching the world fall apart & destroy itself as a detached observer from a space station. This idea very much stemmed from the uncertain times we’re living in. After that I sent it off for mixing & went straight to work on the next song!