Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Hundred Waters: "Down From the Rafters"

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Hundred Waters: "Down From the Rafters" Posted: 19 Feb 2014 08:20 AM PST   Front page photo by Jennifer Jones Inasmuch as discussion could be centered around Hundred Waters' wonderful, quietly-received self-titled debut, it tended to focus on the Gainesville, Fla. band's maximalist aspects: the wild timbral diversity and compositional mastery, being signed to Skrillex's label, and so on. But some of the most enduring moments on Hundred Waters were the quietest ones ("Caverns", "Gather"), which demonstrated the group's firm grasp on unadorned melody to balance out their complex arrangements and searching song structure. New song "Down From The Rafters" is in that mode, too: Nicole Miglis' vocals remain lovely and limber, though the lyrics tend to convey a more palpable, knowable sense of ache compared to Hundred Waters' florid poetics. It's a far cry from the dense, extroverted material they've been playing live, yet while "Down From The Rafters" is hushed and lush, you can still hear the expert musicianship of the quartet, as their restraint allows all of these unknowable, inventive textures to be situated in the exact right place behind Miglis. Hundred Waters: "Down From the Rafters" on SoundCloud.