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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Lead single ‘Figs and Peaches’ hints at the depth of Natural Science, as Lindsay Reamer weaves a set of what might appear to be disparate threads into a nuanced picture of humanity’s relationship with the environment. “I wrote ‘Figs and Peaches’ after reading a trail sign about invasive plants somewhere along the Natchez Trace in Mississippi,” Reamer explains. “I learned that Japanese Stiltgrass was first introduced to North America because it was used as packing material for shipments of fragile porcelain in the early 20th century. Stiltgrass is now found pretty much everywhere east of Texas.”

But the stiltgrass is only one such example within this song alone. Reamer offers a wider picture of an environment constantly changing according to human development, something notable for how inadvertent it often proves to be. Like the stories of tropical fish gathering around the recently demolished B. L. England Generating Station in south Jersey. “It’s rumoured that the warm water surrounding the plant attracted fish that might usually migrate south which made it an excellent fishing spot. This all got me thinking about unintended consequences, which is a heavy theme within environmental history,” Reamer continues:

On an individual level, I think there’s something oddly comforting about knowing we can affect the things around us… for better or worse. In this song I’m focusing on the former. This framing makes me feel less hopeless. So, I think this song is about me trying to remember that in my own little life; to be less passive. To reach out, pick my own fruit, and own the consequences instead of waiting for it all to come to me.

A variety of collaborators bring Lindsay Reamer’s sound to life, with Tyler Bussey (guitars, banjo), Artie Sadtler (bass), Lucas Knapp (synthesizers, percussion), Juliette Rando (drums), Will Henriksen (fiddle) and Eliza Niemi (cello) all lending their talents, and appearances from Victoria Rose (vocals), Michael Cormier-O’Leary (drums), Peter Gill (guitar), Frank Meadows (bass) and Jon Samuels (vocals) on specific tracks too. What results is a sound evocative and malleable enough to chart these environmental changes. And, fittingly for a lead single searching for a more active disposition, ‘Figs and Peaches’ seizes the listener immediately with what might be the loudest track on the record.

Gardens on the land
Castles on the beaches
I trust my hand and
Pluck my figs and peaches

It’s what I want, it’s what I want

Watch the video below by John Mitchell and Reamer herself below:

Natural Science will be released on the 16th August via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.

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However, while the album is united by a certain mellowness, to label it one-paced would be to do it a disservice. Opener ‘Beautiful, OH’ is a sparse, elegiac number underpinned by the gentlest swells, the cyclical pattern interspersed with irregular rises in tempo which never quite culminate in anything like a climax, playing like time passing across a landscape. This is followed by ‘The Carter Starter’, a track positively chirpy in comparison, though violin still sweeps across at various interludes to add a wistful dimension. ‘Still New To This’ creeps out of its beginnings with a playful edge. The cyclical motif utilised once more, though each iteration is altered and built upon so that a sense of organic life is imparted to the flow.

As highlighted in the next three tracks, much of Tiny Houses is pitched somewhere between insular and expansive, the echo and hum suggesting loneliness, though one which could apply to a crowded room or wide open plain. Put another way, the sadness Hour conjure could be either external or internal—a mindful person living within a lonely space, or a lonely person trying to feel more at home within an indifferent one. “This collection of songs explores the cracks and crevices of the spaces we occupy and call home,” the press release explains. “Each song balances the transcendence and claustrophobia that can come with sharing those spaces with others, and the decision, at times liberating, at times painful, to leave and start the process over again.”

With its more insistent percussion and experimental sound, ‘Town Meeting’ has a disorientating undercurrent, the intermittent field recordings of wordless babble adding to the perturbed vibe. Samples are a key part of the title track too, with subtle birdsong and the great rush of wind filling out the background of the simple acoustic sound. The ambient hiss of this track continues onto the grand, slow-burning ‘Doxology’—the most cinematic, post-rock inspired song on the record, bringing to mind talons’ minus the lyrics.

The album is closed by ‘From a Bus Window in Central Ohio, Just Before a Thunder Shower,’ and the sincere preciseness of the title is a good indicator of the sound. Again, the song emerges in gentle waves, a naturalistic patience that eventually rises into some of the most affirming moments on the record. As a finale, it feels like a message of sorts, Hour’s insistence that there can be value and meaning within the simplest of things, beauty within quiet calm, a home within any place, no matter how great or small.

Tiny Houses is out now on Sleeper Records and you can get it from Bandcamp. Also, Hour recently put out three videos which, speaking to The Line of Best Fit, Cormier describes as “attempts at capturing slices of three distinct artistic lives and visions, in process and imperfect, connected by songs from the latest Hour release.” Check them out on Youtube:

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