Low Hum’s newest single, “Fake Reality” is out today in anticipation of the forthcoming debut album Room To Breathe, out June 7th via Last Gang (Chromeo, Rhye, Stars).
It follows previous singles Room To Breathe, which featured on BBC Radio 1’s Chillest Show with Phil Taggart, I Don’t Know Me Like You Do which premiered with Clash, and Strange Love which was playlisted on Amazing Radio and landed plaudits from The 405.
Room To Breathe is the follow up to the eponymous lowhumEP, which won praise and a growing following around the Los Angeles music scene for its captivating mix of psychedelic pop and spaced out rock. With Room To Breathe, which Desha wrote, produced and tracked most of the instruments for, Low Hum further explores a heady mix of late night soundscapes and danceable grooves.
Collin Desha’s most indelible memories were formed growing up in Hawaii in his native culture’s lifestyle — surrounded by the ocean and traditional Hawaiian music. It wasn’t until the self-proclaimed “surf punk kid” picked up the ukulele at 12 years old that he found his life’s calling. “That’s essentially what got me into music,” he says. “I still surf, but once the music thing took over, that changed the course of my life.”
At 17, Desha arrived in Los Angeles, green and hungry to expand his musical identity. “I was so secluded in Hawaii creatively and musically,” he says. “So once I got here, I tried to absorb everything the scene had to offer.” He also imprinted upon films like Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian classic Children of Men and cinema auteurs like Stanley Kubrick and applied the sense of wonderment they instilled in him to his own craft. “How can I distort the process? How can I do something that’s different, or creatively different than just writing a song?” he remembers thinking.
Inspired by his LA peers who controlled their creative process, from writing to recording to production, Desha adopted the moniker Low Hum and set up his home studio, determined to write with “no boundaries.” Shortly after meeting Parisian drummer/producer Jules De Gasperis, the two west coast transplants’ began working together, which resulted in a five-track EP lowhum, showcasing Low Hum’s honeyed, haunting vocals and subtle psychedelic arrangements reminiscent of Tame Impala.
Merging his experiences of the surf and music scenes in his native Hawaii, and current home Los Angeles, Room To Breathe pushes the boundaries of surf music. Lush, kaleidoscopic electronic layers merge with emotive guitars, combined with soul and honesty. It’s a sonic attempt to replicate that hypnotic feeling of looking out to the ocean.
“Not a lot of people know Low Hum, and that’s what I’m really excited about,” he says. “There’s a lot to share.”