LOTS OF HANDS
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“into a pretty room — lots of hands’ debut on Fire Talk Records — exists in the tear-stained early mornings of adolescence, just as the sun makes its first appearance over the horizon and thoughts of the night before begin to subside. A collage of reworked demos, freewheeling session standouts, and swatches of instrumental electronics, into a pretty room emerges as lots of hands’ most thoughtful work to-date. Solemn yet hopeful, into a pretty room occupies the space between moments of tragedy and triumph, offering a touching rumination on grief and loss, growing up and letting go.
Billy Woodhouse and Elliot Dryden, the core duo behind lots of hands, first connected in a Newcastle school music program at age 16. At that point, Woodhouse had been tinkering with lots of hands as a solo musical outlet, self-releasing music on Soundcloud and quietly beginning work on 2020’s mistake. Shortly before that record’s release, Dryden properly joined lots of hands, an effort which was quickly thwarted by global circumstances outside of anyone’s purview. Separated by geography and global chaos, Woodhouse and Dryden began work on lots of hands remotely, exchanging demos online to craft what would become 2021’s largely instrumental there’s someone in this room just like you, and 2023’s cult favorite fantasy. into a pretty room marks the duo’s first truly collaborative effort, with Dryden often trekking the vast northern English countryside to write and record in Woodhouse’s bedroom studio.
Newly relocated from Leeds to their current base of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lots of hands is anchored by the duo’s friendship, which emanates across the album’s 14 tracks. While conceived across painful moments of growth and grief, into a pretty room is a decidedly hopeful effort, crafted between two friends who have spent the better part of the last decade supporting each other through life’s challenges.”
