Seeking overlooked beauty and prizing reflection in a distracted world, Hammock creates cinematic music for the road less traveled. In stirring works of shimmering post-rock ambience that swell with hope and melancholic nostalgia, the Nashville-based duo of Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson immerse listeners in living visions of moments long past, animating life’s fond remembrances and scarring losses with gentle lens-flare harmonics, heart-surging neoclassical drama, and pensive silence. A direct challenge to the passive existence of modern life, where everything can be experienced but precious little is felt, Hammock demands, and richly rewards, patience and contemplation.
One of Hammock’s career defining works, the Mysterium, Universalis, and Silencia trilogy came to a close in 2019. The first chapter, Mysterium, was written following the death of Byrd’s 20-year-old nephew and dealt with incomprehensible, shattering loss. Difficult understanding came on Universalis, and an altered reality understood through quiet reflection took hold on Silencia. Emerging from the silence, a period that brought with it the global pandemic of Covid-19 that has kept loved ones apart, conscripted months upon months of isolation, and roused directionless longing for escape, Hammock presents Elsewhere. Recorded by Byrd and Thompson at their homes, apart and with minimal equipment, Elsewhere serves as a gateway to another place, materializes feelings of separation and loss without closure, and calls listeners back to live their lives – not spend them longing to be something or somewhere else. - Wyatt Marshall

Silencia is the latest collection of evocative and lustrous compositions by the Nashville duo Hammock. The band's 10th LP, Silencia closes a trilogy that began with 2017's Mysterium, and'in the tradition of works by Arvo Pärt and Georgy Sviridov, and writers such as Li-Young Li and Maggie Ross'it is a balm, gesturing at the healing that can ascend in silence. Slow-churning and contemplative, Silencia most prominently features strings orchestrated by Viktor Orri Árnason (Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds), mists of guitar by Hammock's Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, the hushed drone of horns, and 20 elegiac voices from the Budapest Art Choir. The record was mixed and mastered by Francesco Donadello (Winged Victory for the Sullen, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ben Frost) in Berlin. Founded in 2003, Hammock's music has appeared widely in film and television, most recently in Ricky Gervais's 'After Life', and it has been praised by The Wire, Pitchfork, NPR, The Atlantic, and other major culture media.