Hoots & Hellmouth Uneasy Pieces

Hoots & Hellmouth craft an ever-evolving mix of folk, rock, soul, and gospel-influenced Americana that's earnest and inviting, organic and real, and feels like home. In the summer of 2014, the band were ready to record again. They took up residency at Mt. Slippery, a former silversmith studio in Clifton Heights, P.A. that now served as the home base to indie band Dr Dog. The tracks spent many months in limbo as they perfected mixes with Brooklyn producer/engineer Devin Greenwood. Four of the songs from those landmark sessions would become the EP Uneasy Pieces, Hoots & Hellmouth's debut release on The Giving Groove label. Uneasy Pieces demonstrates the fully-realized songcraft of a mature band. It's careful and concise, introspective without being self-centered. It doesn't lay everything out on the first listen--rather, offering hints of meaning that invite the listener to participate a little more actively, cultivating a deeper relationship with the song. I really love the idea of art as perceived by the viewer or the listener, as opposed to art solely as an intention of the maker of said art, Hoots explains. It creates a conversation that makes you think a little deeper about it. You carry those words with you. With Uneasy Pieces, Hoots & Hellmouth edges toward rock and R&B with grit and grace. That rootsy, bluesy Americana sound they're known for forms the foundation, but here, it's layered with fuzzy, reverb-y guitar and warm organ, offering easygoing grooves and upbeat hooks that belie the tension beneath. Hoots' fiery voice cuts with clarity and cracks with vulnerability, soaring over rough-edged arrangements that swell from delicate acoustic guitar articulations to rich, densely textured choruses, driving rhythms always propelling forward. It's atmospheric, it's deeply personal, and it invites you to linger. Following the Giving Groove model, all label profits are donated to Rock to the Future.