HAMMOCK

Hammock is a duo from Nashville, Tennessee, specializing in ambient soundscapes.

CHASING AFTER SHADOWS... LIVING WITH THE GHOSTS (2010)

Hammock - Chasing After Shadows... Living with the Ghosts Cover

Tracks

  1. The Backward Step (4:58)
  2. Tristia (5:46)
  3. Little Fly/Mouchette (5:52) – 
  4. Breathtum (6:00)
  5. In The Nothing Of A Night (8:48)
  6. Andalusia (7:42) – 
  7. The Whole Catastrophe (3:52)
  8. The World We Knew As Children (5:39)
  9. Dust Is The Devil's Snow (6:43)
  10. How Can I Make You Remember Me? (4:55)
  11. You Lost The Starlight In Your Eyes (9:14)
  12. Something Other Than Remaining (3:10)

   

Credits

Drums on some tracks by timEbandit Powles
Mixed by timEbandit Powles
Photography by Thomas Petillo

Releases

Notes

Here's a review from Pitchfork:

Hammock
Chasing After Shadows...Living with the Ghosts

7.3 (out of 10)

The first four people thanked in the acknowledgements of Hammock's fourth album are two members of Australian rock band the Church and the two members of Texas ambient duo Stars of the Lid. If you know both groups, you could probably piece together a bit of a picture of the music on Chasing After Shadows... Living With the Ghosts. It's diaphanous music, with one foot in the deep ambient textures of Stars of the Lid, and another in the more traditional, anthemic, and slightly psychedelic rock of the Church. It doesn't sound quite like either group-- Hammock have a unique sound that lies in the space between, and as with their previous albums, the group focuses here on constructing a sound world you can sink into, a place where the audio captures the feeling invoked by a title like "The World We Knew as Children".

The Church's Tim Powles is one of the acknowledged parties, and he's one of three drummers that helps augment the duo of Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd on several tracks-- drums feature more prominently here than on any of the band's prior releases. Most of the vocals, sung by Christine Glass Byrd, are wordless, bleeding into the glassy texture of strings, guitars, keyboards, and horns as a sort of ghost-like echo of a human presence. The band gets close to sounding like a rock group in places. The chiming rhythm guitar and arcing, contrail-like lead guitar coax melody out of the album-- like Ride or Slowdive slowed down and blissed a lot further out. On "You Lost the Starlight in Your Eyes", they actually wrap their voices around some lyrics, an evocative repeated couplet.

For every song like that, though, there's another that sounds like an orchestra breathing or an echo crossing an abyss. Those blurred figures floating in the water on the album cover are a visual analog for the sense of unmoored drift or float created by the album's most ethereal and ambient moments. I try to imagine music videos for it, and all I come up with is slow-motion images of sand blowing off the tops of dunes and seaweed swaying with the tide. It's intensely visual music-- you really get the sense of shapes shifting and forms moving.

Anyone who has liked Hammock in the past will like this. They've made a slight move toward more conventional rock structures here, but not enough to turn off past followers, and probably plenty to draw in a few people who they might not have hooked before. It's a long record, occupying a full CD, and one that's easy to luxuriate in for its full run time. It also leaves open a lot of possibilities for the band's future direction; if they're itching to write more conventional songs without giving up their identity, what they've accomplished here indicates they could do it.

- Joe Tangari, June 16, 2010


CHASING AFTER SHADOWS... LIVING WITH THE GHOSTS (OUTTAKES) EP (2010)

Hammock - Chasing After Shadows... Living with the Ghosts (Outtakes) EP Cover

Tracks

  1. No Agenda (Instrumental) (4:55) – 
  2. Still Secrets Remaining (7:22)
  3. Tunings (5:22)
  4. Verse For Forgiveness (Instrumental) (7:08)

Credits

Drums on some tracks by timEbandit Powles
Mixed by timEbandit Powles

Releases


ASLEEP IN THE DOWNLIGHTS (2011)

Hammock - Asleep In The Downlights Cover

Tracks

  1. No Agenda (4:19) - Hammock featuring Steve Kilbey of The Church – 
  2. Sinking Inside Yourself (6:01) - Hammock
  3. Verse For Forgiveness (4:59) - Hammock featuring timEbandit Powles of The Church – 
  4. Parkers Chapel (7:06) - Hammock – 

Credits

No Agenda
  Music by Hammock
  Words and Vocals by Steve Kilbey
  Backing Vocals by timEbandit
  Mixed, Deduced and Massaged by timEbandit Powles @ Spacejunk III, Sydney, Australia
  Drums & percussion by Steve Hindalong
  Love Sponge Strings & Horns arranged by Hammock
  Strings/horns produced by Steve Hindalong

Verse For Forgiveness
  Music by Hammock
  Vocals by timEbandit Powles
  Words by timEbandit Powles, vs2 words finessed by Marc Byrd
  Mellotron by timEbandit Powles
  Drums & percussion by Steve Hindalong
  Cellos by Matt Slocum
  Angel Voice of Forgiveness by Holly Rankin
  Mixed, Demixed, Reduced and Enlarged by timEbandit Powles @ Spacejunk III, Sydney, Australia

Releases


DEPARTURE SONGS (2012)

Hammock - Departure Songs Cover

Tracks

  1. Cold Front (6:58) – 
  2. Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life (6:27)
  3. Together Alone (7:08)
  4. Artificial Paradises (5:20)
  5. Tonight We Burn Like Stars That Never Die (6:27)
  6. Pathos (6:46)
  7. Awakened, He Heard Only Silence (3:02)
  8. Words You Said... I'll Never Forget You Now (6:34)
  9. Tape Recorder (6:06) – 
  10. Frailty (For the Dearly Departed) (6:52)
  11. Dark Circles (6:14)
  12. (Let's Kiss) While All the Stars Are Falling Down (6:52)
  13. All Is Dream and Everything Is Real (5:59)
  14. Mute Angels (4:57)
  15. Hiding But Nobody Missed You (5:05)
  16. We Could Die Chasing This Feeling (6:24)
  17. Glossolalia (2:10)
  18. (Leaving) The House Where We Grew Up (5:59)
  19. Tornado Warning (4:50)

   

Credits

Mixed by timEbandit Powles @ Spacejunk III, Sydney, Australia

Releases


EPS, SINGLES & REMIXES (2013)

Hammock - EPs, Singles & Remixes Cover

Tracks

  1. North (7:58)
  2. West (4:06)
  3. East (7:44)
  4. South (6:47)
  5. Sora (5:51)
  6. Stranded Under Endless Sky (5:02)
  7. Birds Flying In Sequence (7:49)
  8. Always Wishing You Were Somewhere Else (3:04)
  9. An Empty Field (9:42)
  10. Helios - The Obeisant Vine (Hammock Remix) (5:50) – 
  11. The More You Drink From The Well... The Higher The Waters Will Rise (6:09)
  12. Rhian Sheehan - Borrowing The Past (Hammock Remix) (6:24)
  13. My Shoulder Covered With Stars (4:10)
  14. No Agenda (featuring Steve Kilbey of The Church) (4:21) – 
  15. Sinking Inside Yourself (6:03)
  16. Verse For Forgiveness (featuring timEbandit Powles of The Church) (5:01) – 
  17. Parkers Chapel (7:07)
  18. Harmonica (4:04)
  19. Longest Year (8:26)
  20. Dark Beyond The Blue (5:19)
  21. Cruel Sparks (5:15)
  22. Lonely, Some Quietly Wander In The Hall Of Stars (7:16)
  23. One Another (6:44)
  24. 186,000 Endings Per Second (6:28) - Josh Varnedore Featuring Hammock
  25. Black Metallic (7:36) – 
  26. Gemini And The Black Knight (timEbandit Remix) (5:47)

   

Sources:
   1-4: "North West East South" EP (2010)
   5: Single (2006)
   6-9: "Stranded Under Endless Sky" EP (2005)
   10: Hammock Remix of Helios (2012)
   11. Single (2012)
   12: Hammock Remix of Rhian Sheehan (2012)
   13. Single (2009)
   14-17: "Asleep in the Downlights" EP (2011)
   18: Single (2006)
   19-23: "Longest Year" EP (2010)
   24. Collaboration (2012)
   25: Single (cover of Catherine Wheel) (2005)
   26: timEbandit Powles remix of "Geminis in the Country"
      Original version available on the deluxe edition of
      "Chasing After Shadows...Living with the Ghosts" (2013)

Releases