lots of hands, the Newcastle outfit formed by Billy Woodhouse and Eliott Dryden, have released a new song called “rosie”. It’s remains rather cryptic who the titular Rosie is, but lots of hands have crafted quite a gorgeous arrangement: warm emo-folk with digitised layers gnawing at its fringes. The music sporadically explodes into more heavy post-rock-y bursts: resonant and slightly spooky, partly due to the filtered vocal effects and droney woodwinds.
There’s a mournful quality to it all, especially the way the lyrics allude to revisiting the dead: “Rosie keeps walking the path / When she turns to me she starts to laugh/and points at the ground / I’m pausing the earth and its sound”.
The childlike video illustration zooms into a graveyard and a large tree growing in its center. It’s a complex tangle of emotions, somewhere between whimsy and gloom: like a treasure hunt that incidentally leads to something more heavy and profound. A kindling with the cycle of nature perhaps? Or a young mind’s first brush with death? lots of hands leave the exact meaning implicit to the listener.
The band – freshly signed by Brooklyn imprint Fire Talk – have been gaining attention on a more grassroots level for awhile now, with a pretty prolific output already. They have played support shows shows with the likes of claire rousay, labelmates Cola and Blue Bendy, so it’s safe to assume we’ll hear lots more about lots of hands in the not-so-distant future.
For now, check out “rosie” below and on your favorite streaming platforms.
