Dragonflies – Slower
Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich have a new project together called Dragonflies, and its self-titled debut album lands September 18 via Dark Horse Records/BMG. Harrison’s spent years fronting thenewno2, working with Fistful of Mercy, and scoring film and TV; Godrich needs less introduction, having shaped records for Radiohead, Beck, and IDLES while also co-founding Atoms for Peace and Ultraísta. Album opener “Slower” is the first thing we’re hearing from the pair, out now with a video from Bristol animator RUFFMERCY.
The two go back a long way as friends, but the actual working relationship started almost accidentally. Harrison called Godrich during pandemic lockdown searching for advice, a conversation that eventually became Harrison’s 2023 album Innerstanding. That led to another conversation, then an invitation into Godrich’s Brixton studio, where they started building songs from tape loops rather than anything more planned out. Harrison took on vocals and guitar, stepping back from the studio control he’s used to, while Godrich shaped the material as they went. “One person throwing something in the air and the other person catching it,” is how Godrich describes it, and that loose, reactive process is audible in the finished song.
“Slower” leans into trip-hop, hand-played grooves sitting somewhere between organic and electronic. Joey Waronker, Godrich’s bandmate from Ultraísta and Atoms for Peace, adds percussion, and the wider album brings in arranger David Campbell, Beck’s father, for strings elsewhere on the record. What surprised me is how “unhurried and slow” the whole thing feels for two musicians with this much studio pedigree between them; nothing here is rushing to prove anything. RUFFMERCY’s video matches that pace, following a figure moving slowly through town, woods, and open field before another joins them, ending on an abandoned building and a walk along the water.
It’s a patient opener for a record that sounds like it was made by two people with nothing left to prove and no reason to hurry.
