Today, Lowland Hum—the neo-folk duo comprised of Lauren and Daniel Goans—is announcing their new album At Home. As you may have guessed, the title comes from the time the pair spent at home over the course of the pandemic, which is confirmed in the track’s lead single “Where Are You?” as Lauren’s lyrics cover the familiar thrill of stepping out of the apartment if only for a little while, while later alluding to the way our conversations in quarantine gravitated from face-to-face encounters to utilitarian monologues directed at our smart watches—all over a near-ambient piano and electronic drumbeat. If it all sounds very dreamlike, well, that’s because that’s exactly where the idea for the song came from.
“The initial tidbits of this song came to me in a dream,” explains Lauren. “Daniel was playing this song for a group of folks in a parking lot after a show was over. Everyone seemed to know the song except me. When I awoke in the middle of the night I realized I still remembered the guitar and vocal melodies along with some of the lyrics from the first verse. I quietly slipped downstairs and recorded all that I could remember on my phone’s voice memo app. We took the first verse almost completely as it was in my dream and ran with the concept. All the while, though, I couldn’t shake this slightly guilty feeling—like I was stealing an idea from Daniel!”
The Bond Richards–directed visual for the track only fortifies this liminal feel, with Daniel prowling around a foggy open field. Watch it below.
