Premiere: The Haunting Spectre of DYVR's "Ghost Hands"

DYVR’s new single “Ghost Hands” completely engulfs us in a dark electronic dream, numbing our senses with electric energy and haunting emotion.

For fans of James Blake, Aquilo, Jack Garratt

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Listening to DYVR’s music is an ethereal experience the likes of which few songs and artists are capable of creating. Like a distant howl or an impenetrable nightmare, new single “Ghost Hands” completely engulfs us in a dark electronic dream, numbing our senses with electric energy and haunting emotion.

Come back down,
It’s too much,
I’m breathing,
Heavier,

Faceless breeze,
Calm me down,
Bittersweet,
Shivers now,

Listen: “Ghost Hands” – DYVR

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Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Ghost Hands,” DYVR’s brand new single (out this Friday, 19 June 2018 via Veta Records). Comparable to James Blake or SOHN, DYVR offers breathtaking electronic music laced with edgy pop/rock melodies that stir the soul. Based in London, the British singer/songwriter and producer sings with shiver-inducing execution and deep, dark sincerity.

Ghost Hands - DYVR © 2018 — Ghost Hands – DYVR

“Ghost Hands” explores a fictional, hyper-real narrative that blends DYVR’s memory of the past with old dreams. Held in place by a vast soundscape powered by pulsing synths and rising vocal oh‘s, the song resonates with fear and uncertainty – two emotions we as a global society have certainly felt a lot in recent months and years, what with the sharp rise of nationalist movements across Europe and the Americas. As safe as certain parts of the world are, it’s a scary time to be alive: Anything could happen. Life feels unstable, and “Ghost Hands” capitalizes off that instability – bred from the darkness, it’s a passionate cry for the light.

We feel driving urgency as DYVR surrenders himself to a soulful, heavy chorus:

Will the ghost hands reach me?
Standing in the dark,
Blindfolded,
I’m hoping, I’m hoping,
I’m hoping they can’t…

“I wrote Ghost Hands last year when there was a lot of change happening around me,” DYVR tells Atwood Magazine. “There were quite drastic shifts going on for me personally and for the world at large. Being in London, you feel a lot of that, you know? Everything I was writing was really internal. I kept finding myself being brought back to memories from when I was a child, and noticed how each memory had a flavour to it – a kind of poetic style. They weren’t purely factual, how we might think of memories. They were rooted in emotion.”

DYVR continues, “‘Ghost Hands’ looks at one of those memories. I’m a kid, and I’m going downstairs in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I notice that there is a faint light in the living room and I go inside. The TV is on and showing a static screen. I’m stood in the middle of the room and the walls feel like they’re humming and I’m frozen in fear, in front of the TV screen. Now the thing about this memory is that it isn’t all true. As I unpacked it while I wrote the song, I realised that was made up of a recurring dream that I used to have around that time as a child, and the film Poltergeist, which my big brothers had let me watch with them one night when my parents weren’t home. This whole realisation felt quite powerful to me. The way we live now is so connected and complex and beautiful, but also puts our emotions at risk. With more and more people finding it difficult to maintain and understand their mental health, I think knowing that we can find agency amidst everything is really important. If we can find ways to better understand important moments in our past, that gives us the potential to re-interpret them and decide who we want to be right now.”

Come back down,
It’s too much,
I’m breathing,
Heavier,

It’s the weight that can’t quite be lifted: The cloud that follows you through your days, keeping happiness out of arm’s reach. Satisfaction feels worlds away – but that doesn’t mean you can’t strive to get it back. Through its somber delivery and impassioned tone, “Ghost Hands” reminds us that we’re all in this together – that we have the power to control our destiny, no matter how hopeless our situations feel. Stream “Ghost Hands” exclusively on Atwood Magazine! The track is out everywhere this Friday, 22 June 2018 via Veta Records.

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