London-based indie ambient-pop duo Hoofa return with their third release of six self-produced and self-released singles out this year, “How Do We Know.” Like any creative endeavour, there’s a healthy amount of risk involved with the potential for it to succeed, and inspired by the concept, they consider the track’s motivation in an email statement, “You have to make a lot of sacrifices in your personal life to keep moving forward, doing what you love, and how do you know when you’ve made it?”
A spellbinding and stripped-back iteration of the chorus introduces the miring, pensive narrative of the track. With much of the focus on the vocal, keys and bass fill out the verse as the lyrics tongue-in-cheekily consider the true cost of being a musician in modern times. Splashy drums and slick, reverb-soaked guitar licks maintain the tracks gripping, yet slow-burning energy and as “How Do We Know” takes us through the motions once again, it builds towards an impending and concluding crescendo which switches it up a gear to an iconic indie-rock groove that’s hard to not get swept up in.
Continuing in the same statement, they state, “Being a self-managed, self-funded, self-recording artist, half the battle is being clear on what we count as “making it.” Is it playing Reading and Leeds Festival, which is a dream of ours, or is it getting the around 200,000 streams needed to break even so we can continue to put out music? No one gets into music to get rich, and the line “Forget about your pension plans, got a million streams” pokes a bit of fun at that, but also is a very real issue artists face just to exist.”
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