Hundred Waters

Sounding as if Stereolab, the Postal Service, Broadcast, Laura Nyro, and Bj??rk were the Top Five of their collective playlist, Hundred Waters are a quartet from Gainesville, Florida whose soft combination of organic and electronic attracted the most unlikely of label bosses, superstar DJ Skrillex. Members Nicole Miglis, Trayer Tryon, Paul Giese, Zach Tetreault, and Allen Scott played together in various formations as friends back in middle school, but it took until adulthood and 2011 for them to become Hundred Waters. Living together in one house meant the band had a communal mentality, yet over time, a unique technique of the five members recording and composing on their own was developed, and soon jam sessions evolved into individuals working on the same songs but alone, in different rooms. The group felt that greater care was being put into the work and the results displayed it. The best results were released by the Elestial label in 2012 as the band's self-titled debut album. Skrillex caught wind of the release and signed the band to his OWSLA label that same year. AraabMuzik, Star Slinger, and Troublemaker were some of the remixers who contributed to their first OWSLA release, the 2012 EP Thistle. They returned in 2014 with sophomore album The Moon Rang Like a Bell, another dense patchwork of found sounds and precision electronics. Hundred Waters approached the album from a more experienced perspective, having had difficulty making the songs from their earlier recorded work translate easily in a live setting. ~ David Jeffries