HIBOU “Night Fell”

American multi-instrumentalist HIBOU is back with new single “Night Fell”, along with the announcement of a new EP ‘Arc’ (due 13 January 2023). 

Floating through a breezy blend of gossamer vocals, twinkling instrumentals and lush textured melodies, “Night Fell” is a delicate and jangling track that paves the way for Hibou’s new EP ‘Arc’. 

Born in Seattle and now based in Paris, ‘Arc’ is Hibou’s first release since his 2019 full-length LP ‘Halve’ and the new body of work sees the artist emerge from his lengthy silence and reel listeners right back into the glistening whirlwind of his sound.

A delicate blend of lo-fi alt-pop, nostalgic shoegaze and diaphanous dream-pop, Peter Michel (aka Hibou) spent the summer writing the EP along the Canal de l’Ourcq, before recording in various apartments, bathrooms and rehearsal spaces in Paris. Engineered and produced by Michel himself, the multi-instrumentalist also performs vocals, guitar and bass on each track, with drums courtesy of Jase Ihler.

A dreamy and diverse project, ‘Arc’ melds together a rich amalgam of sounds: from the delicate and dazing “June” to the buzzing and buoyant “Already Forgotten” and from the eerie twanging guitars on “Devilry” to the stormy, seesawing soundscapes on “Upon The Clouds You Weep”. 

Taking its name from “an electric arc between things, or arc lightning”, ‘Arc’ is both sentimental and stylish with its carefully composed melodies seeming to tap into long-forgotten, hazy memories from the past just as easily as it does bolster hope for the future.

Inspired by shoegaze greats both past and present, Hibou’s elegant arrangements are hard to pin down, falling somewhere between the indie-rock tinted musings of Beach Fossils and DIIV, the folk-flecked intimacies of Alex G and the tenderly tormented sound of The Cure. 

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Amidst an atmosphere of melancholia, Peter Michel has thrown himself into a lifetime’s worth of writing, recording and touring. At just 17 the musician toured extensively with dream-pop outfit Craft Spells, and soon after he met critical acclaim with his own personal project Hibou.

Forging his own lo-fi, shoegaze-inspired sound with three full-length LPs under his belt to date, Hibou creates meticulous landscapes filled with swooning and hazy reflections on love, loss, nostalgia and joy from a 10,000 foot view. Plucking from a diverse sphere of influence and citing the likes of New Order, Conor Oberst, My Bloody Valentine and Adrianne Lenker as inspirations, his music slips is misty and wistful: a testament to the fantasies that emerge from a mind unmoored. 

Having made music under the Hibou alias since 2013, Hibou has gained praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound and KEXP. Performing live as a four-piece, Michel and his band have toured with the likes of Metric, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Phantogram and more and have performed at numerous festivals including SXSW, Bumbershoot, Sasquatch and Timber!. They will also be playing a number of headline shows in the US to mark the EP’s release in the new year.

-Official bio