Pour one out for Lower Dens. The very good Baltimore dream-pop band have announced that they're calling it quits in a long message shared on frontperson J Hunter's website.
The lengthy note opens, "It's time for me and Nate to say goodbye," and seems to indicate that the two may be stepping away from music entirely.
"We're proud of what we've done, and very lucky to have had so many people supporting us," Hunter writes. "Spiritually and physically, we, like, can not participate in the music industry any longer. We're also old, enjoy being with our families, and have other goals in mind."
Hunter goes on to thank the band's management team and former bandmates, particularly bassist Geoff Graham, who "helped to form this band and gave so much of himself to it in essential contributions and years of very hard work."
Hunter then explains his plans for the future, writing:
My plans for the immediate future involve writing about change, and working to facilitate change. [nerd alert] Lower Den's "thematic arc," a conceptual framework that I used to help write our albums, was about radical, equitable transformation of society. It's what I really care about, which is why I was trying to write music about it in this rock band. There are other ways of life possible for humans.
Since I was a kid, I've felt like our dominant culture, here in the US and maybe broadly in the West, is exactly backwards to the way many human beings naturally function, and that it's killing us. I think criticism of that culture is vital to transformation. I'm naturally critical in a way that hasn't served me well socially, but that I cling to nonetheless because it is constructive. It's world-building. It's meant to be collaborative. I'm like to criticize our society, and think about how to improve it, and I hope to connect with others who are similarly interested.
Hunter also shares that he was diagnosed with autism and ADHD this year, and that the diagnosis "freed me from lifelong self-hatred, and let me be myself. I'm letting myself make decisions about my life without measuring their viability in a society that does not try to make sense or benefit its members. What I want is to write, connect with other Autistics, and help create/improve/sustain real systems to facilitate change. With this, I'm deciding that I can and will."
Further in the letter, Hunter says that he will continue to update his website with photos of the band and himself, upload rare Lower Dens material and post new music should he make any.
He ends the letter by writing, "thanks to all of you making a life you believe in, and all of you surviving right now in a world that does not yet value people." You can read the entire thing here.
Lower Dens released four albums over their decade-long career, the last being 2019's The Competition.
Revisit their song "Real Thing" below.
The lengthy note opens, "It's time for me and Nate to say goodbye," and seems to indicate that the two may be stepping away from music entirely.
"We're proud of what we've done, and very lucky to have had so many people supporting us," Hunter writes. "Spiritually and physically, we, like, can not participate in the music industry any longer. We're also old, enjoy being with our families, and have other goals in mind."
Hunter goes on to thank the band's management team and former bandmates, particularly bassist Geoff Graham, who "helped to form this band and gave so much of himself to it in essential contributions and years of very hard work."
Hunter then explains his plans for the future, writing:
My plans for the immediate future involve writing about change, and working to facilitate change. [nerd alert] Lower Den's "thematic arc," a conceptual framework that I used to help write our albums, was about radical, equitable transformation of society. It's what I really care about, which is why I was trying to write music about it in this rock band. There are other ways of life possible for humans.
Since I was a kid, I've felt like our dominant culture, here in the US and maybe broadly in the West, is exactly backwards to the way many human beings naturally function, and that it's killing us. I think criticism of that culture is vital to transformation. I'm naturally critical in a way that hasn't served me well socially, but that I cling to nonetheless because it is constructive. It's world-building. It's meant to be collaborative. I'm like to criticize our society, and think about how to improve it, and I hope to connect with others who are similarly interested.
Hunter also shares that he was diagnosed with autism and ADHD this year, and that the diagnosis "freed me from lifelong self-hatred, and let me be myself. I'm letting myself make decisions about my life without measuring their viability in a society that does not try to make sense or benefit its members. What I want is to write, connect with other Autistics, and help create/improve/sustain real systems to facilitate change. With this, I'm deciding that I can and will."
Further in the letter, Hunter says that he will continue to update his website with photos of the band and himself, upload rare Lower Dens material and post new music should he make any.
He ends the letter by writing, "thanks to all of you making a life you believe in, and all of you surviving right now in a world that does not yet value people." You can read the entire thing here.
Lower Dens released four albums over their decade-long career, the last being 2019's The Competition.
Revisit their song "Real Thing" below.