The Hundred In The Hands

The Hundred in the Hands is Eleanore Everdell and Jason Friedman. Together they make music that feels vigorously electric yet intensely human; physical yet bodiless; commanding yet vulnerable. Together they bridge the gap between pulsing dance-floor Armageddon and feverish intimacy – between the communal and the personal. Jason and Eleanore discovered their shared sensibility for early hip hop, French house and disco, ska and dub, post- punk, British invasion-mod and girl pop from the 60’s through the 80’s. The duo found their tastes meshed over an impossibly broad spectrum of sounds and eras, and they decided to make music together. Their first song – the electrifying post-punk rave-up ‘Dressed in Dresden’ – was written and recorded in a couple of days, released online, picked up and released as a 45 by a record shop in the U.K. where they were soon playing shows and coming to the attention of Warp Records.

But, rather than following the sometimes mad-rush of a hype driven media, the two retreated to the bunker to write and record. During that time, Jason and Eleanore focused on deciding exactly who they wanted to be. What they discovered and emerged with were 17 startling new tracks and a precise and deliberate sound. Equal parts mutant disco, 80’s pop queen and Yé Yé girl, Eleanore’s epic vocals and lavish synths — both full and flirty, desperate and demanding — belie a naturalism that’s intensified and offset by Jason’s bass lines, programmed beats and guitars that swerve from angular, full-throttle riffs to vaporous and ephemeral shadows. Jason and Eleanore trade menacing metallic, razor sharp, turns, assembling towering melodies atop pulsing rhythms.