Photo: Clifford Kiing

Following last year’s Answers EP and their inclusion in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, vocalist, composer, producer, and performer Holland Andrews has announced a new ongoing series of ambient drone works titled Aromatherapy: Vol. 1. Created over the past five years for personal use, Andrews is now sharing these extended compositions. This series, as the press release explains, “is composed to stimulate your home or your headspace with uplifted peace, flow, self-realization, and relaxation, akin to how one uses aromatherapy.”

Each volume in the series takes on a different mood or intention, from meditation and grounding to creative focus, and tracks run 20–30 minutes, roughly the length of time it takes for incense to burn, an intentional design element.

Aromatherapy: Vol. 1 will see the light of day this Friday May 16th through Good Cloud Day, and ahead of it, they have shared the first track, ‘The Raft’. “The Raft was crafted to soothe the mind,” Andrews says. “Its delicate chord cluster floats beneath a blanket of breathful oceanic tides, perpetually shifting. It represents an interior lighthouse, an eternal beacon that remains lit and shines a compassionate presence throughout change.” ‘The Raft’ is offered with accompanying visuals. Check it out below and let yourself drift away.

Photo: Mengwen Cao

Last month, vocalist, composer, producer, and performer Holland Andrews announced the release of their new EP, Answers. Along with the news, Andrews had shared the marvelous title track as the first single. With release date fast approaching this month, Andrews is enticing us again with a new celestial single called ‘Aura’. Of the track, they say:

“‘Aura’ is a highly visual song which generates the image of iridescent layers, textures, and colors of varying opacity dancing around each other seeking rest.”

‘Aura’ is offered with an accompanying video made by Andrews. Check it out below and grab the EP when it’s out on May 10th through LEITER.

Vocalist, composer, producer, and performer Holland Andrews is back with their latest EP offering, Answers. Set for release on May 10th through Nils Frahm’s LEITER imprint, their upcoming EP marks the culmination of a series of EP releases that began in 2021, including Wordless, Forgettings, and Doubtless.

Not easy to classify, Andrew’s music incorporates elements from contemporary classical, ambient, electronic, and experimental music. “Where do I belong? That’s tricky for me”, they remark. “I have this voracious quality of just wanting to keep playing and keep exploring.” Their work sits comfortably at the intersection of various musical genres, similar to their past collaborators such as Son Lux, Nils Frahm, Darian Donovan Thomas, William Brittelle, and Christina Vantzou.

Answers, along with the preceding Wordless EP, marks a shift in Andrews’ artistic approach. Formerly creating under the name Like A Villain, Andrews has moved from a performance-based approach to a more integrated style of composition, blending live-recorded samples within music production. “Everything I’ve been releasing under my name has been more and more about exploration.”

In creating the upcoming Answers, Andrews meant to bring closure, but instead, they faced new questions, sources of inspiration, and creative possibilities. Andrews explains:

“There’s a lineage in the information that I’ve been gaining in the creation of these four EPs. The process of making Doubtless was so demanding, that one of my goals with Answers was to develop a place of rest. I was looking for a period to a sentence, but I think I ended with a question mark. Answers gave me bigger questions than I thought it would have, which is a very exciting place to be. It’s a closing and an opening at the same time, an opening for what’s coming next.”

As a captivating taste of what’s to come, Andrews has shared the title track along with an accompanying video made by themselves.