Holy Hive

Description

In 2020, Holy Hive introduced us to a sound we didn't know we needed. Homer Steinweiss's tight drumming combined with Paul Spring's falsetto voice produced a sound that has been called soul folk. Indeed, Holy Hive not only expertly layers the most apparent musical aspects of soul and folk but also delves deep to extract and appropriate traditions from the past. When Homer wasn't drumming for Lady Gaga, Adele, or Bruno Mars, he was producing Paul's solo folk record. Alongside their original collaborator and bassist Joe Harrison, these sessions proved to be the foundation of Holy Hive. Their first album, *Float Back To You*, combined the best of each musician: Homer's classic and universal soul sound and Paul's dreamy folk approach. With this second album, again on Big Crown Records, the band's simple yet sparse soul folk sound is back, but updated with new influences and the challenge of creating music during a global pandemic. The result is a new, more personal self-titled album. With the first single, "I Don’t Envy Yesterdays," Homer and Paul pick up where they left off. The track weighs the question of time and the human condition, a deeply thoughtful and typically delicate subject—but approached here in a light, almost natural way with Homer's drumming giving the song room to breathe. Written in the desert of Yucca Valley before the world fell apart in 2020, it's no wonder Paul's voice drifts and rises above everything like a shimmering heat haze. There were three distinct phases in assembling the album: the first stage was pre-pandemic in California when the band was traveling together, then they were separated, creating together but remotely, and finally there's an explosion in production once reunited in New York. There's a natural but subtle evolution, with Homer and Paul drawing on new and perhaps more obscure influences. We know Holy Hive's ability to convey the abstract and complex poetically and pleasantly, but where the first album was eloquent with casual songs about love and affection, Holy Hive broadens the scope with these new influences and a more personal approach. Featuring Mary Lattimore, Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), Anant Pradhan, Nick Movshon, Leon Michels (El Michels Affair), Shannon Wise (The Shacks), Dave Guy (The Roots), and Elliot Skinner.