The benefits of this modus operandi are manifold. With an ever-changing array of musicians, Hour is uniquely resistant to retreading old ground, each recording session or performance shaped by the configuration present in that specific moment. But more importantly, the sheer breadth of talent available to Cormier-O’Leary allows him to explore themes which might too great to confront on his own. Consider Hour’s new full-length, Ghost Bridge, set for release this autumn via Dear Life Records. An album which, as per its title, repurposes an unrealised film concept in which a bridge literally starts to dematerialise into thin air. With a sound decidedly cinematic, Hour use this image as a starting point for a far wider meditation on loss and disappearance. What it means to be on one side of something without hope of crossing over. The helplessness of being stranded in any given location. Not to mention the almost dreamlike experience of witnessing a tangible aspect of your world suddenly vanish in an instant. How do we live with the knowledge this will happen to people around us, be they lovers or strangers? What would it feel like to take their place?

A thirteen-strong cast of musicians assembled to bring Ghost Bridge to life, and each song was arranged with specific players in mind. To give the full roll call, Cormier-O’Leary is joined by Jason Calhoun, Em Downing, Matt Fox, Peter Gill (2nd Grade, Friendship), Pat Keen, Lucas Knapp, Evan McGonagill, Peter McLaughlin (Little Wings), Frank Meadows (Fust, Dear Life co-owner), Keith J. Nelson, Abi Reimold, Adelyn Strei (Skullcrusher) and Heeyoon Won (Boosegumps). You only have to listen to the subtly mesmeric title track to appreciate the newfound depth of this iteration of Hour. A song, clocking in at near ten minutes which must rank among Cormier-O’Leary’s most ambitious and thematically loaded to date. Nothing is hurried, yet there is nevertheless an urgency to the poignant, curious sound. The level of detail is striking but there is no ounce of ostentation. Lesser acts might be overwhelmed if tasked with exploring concepts of loss and mortality, prone to slipping into maudlin excess, but with a unique blend of compassion and abstraction, it seems Hour are up to the task.

The song is paired with an equally abstract and evocative short film made by Cormier-O’Leary and his collaborators themselves. “I was transfixed by this triangle hallway in one of the buildings at the Circus Campus in Germantown, so I gathered my friends Buzz Lombardi, Heeyoon Won, Hayden Hall, Lucas Knapp and Silas Reidy to make the video there,” he explains. “We spent most of our time lighting the hallway so Silas’ long, slow walk towards the camera would be disorienting with him emerging from and descending back into shadow.” Watch in full below:

Ghost Bridge will be released on the 9th October via Dear Life Records and you can pre-0rder it from the Hour Bandcamp page.

Band photo by William H. Travis, album cover photography by Matthew Chasney, layout by Francis Lyons

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“The good news is that this effect works two ways, and what acts as therapy for Won as a writer/musician has the same effect on us as the listener. It’s one of my favourite things about this kind of music, the way that an entirely personal and cathartic process is released into the big wide world to help others too”

If this sounds good to you then we have good news. Heeyoon Won has teamed up with the good folks as It Takes Time Records to put out a special edition of  on cassette, featuring the eight original EP tracks as well as seven so-far unreleased songs tacked on the end. The first single ‘Meditation’ was released a while back, the track seeing Won’s refrain “When will I see you again?” submerged beneath sparkling synths. The track gives the image of a distant lover missing her companion, staring at a sky full of shimmering stars and streaks and cosmic dust, impossibly the very same sky as the one above the person she is missing.

The second single, unveiled today, is ‘Stole Ur Bike’, a short song clocking in at just over one and a half minutes. While the track consists of little more than a couple of verses about taking someone’s bike (or dreaming of it), it manages to exist as a larger entity, a sincere love story unfolding between the lines, one which has a long beginning and most likely a longer end, somewhere off in the distant future.

“I had a dream I stole your bike,
I had a dream you took it for a ride.
It was new, it was blue,
it was tall, as tall as you.

I had a dream I stole your bike
I had a dream you took it for a ride
I took it when you weren’t looking
You were looking at the train tracks

I had a dream I stole your bike
I had a dream I took it for a ride”

You can pre-order the new edition of now from It Takes Time Records, including on “crazy awesome tape… with crazy awesome thank you note”, which sounds crazy awesome to us.

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