Today, LA-based songwriter and multi-faceted creative Hrishikesh Hirway announces his debut LP under his own name, In the Last Hour of Light, with lead single "Stray Dogs (with Iron & Wine)." Known for making music under the moniker The One Am Radio, compositions for film & TV and his work as the host of the award-winning podcast and Netflix Series Song Exploder, Hrishikesh Hirway offers "Stray Dogs" as a gentle, upbeat folk song that reflects on the first time he saw stray dogs in the wild, and how he similarly once ran with a pack of friends.
"I wrote this song in 2023, a few days before going to Blue Rock Studio, in Wimberley, Texas for a week-long songwriting retreat. I was so worried about squandering the opportunity by getting there and running out of ideas for songs that I reached out to people to ask for prompts that I could use if I got stuck. One person I reached out to was Sam Beam, from Iron & Wine. He offered the prompt 'describe a street you grew up on from the point of view of a stray dog.'" Hirway says.
The prompt sent Hirway back in time to 1987, as an eight-year-old in the streets of Saswad, his mother's hometown, where he saw stray dogs for the first time. They appeared rambunctious and carefree, instead of snarling and vicious, as TV had made them out to be. In 1998, Hirway remembered this pack of dogs while aimlessly driving from New Haven to New York with a group of his teenage friends, looking for fun in the summer heat.
"Because of his hand in its origin, I asked Sam if he would sing on the song, with his characteristic layered harmonies. His vocals, to me, are the sound of my friends: joyful, reckless, racing, and beautiful."
Produced by Grammy-nominated Phil Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker), the new LP is a memoir about letting go—of people, of memories, of the desire to stop time from moving too fast. The songs were born in the wake of Hrishikesh's mother's death, as the years since push her further into the past; in the moments spent waiting for his father to recover in his hospital room; in the dream of a daughter that he will never have. There are love songs, too—but the kind of love that has the patina of a long-shared life, where there is as much time behind you as there may be left ahead.
The LP is Hirway's second collection of songs since releasing music under his own name, and the first long-play collection. Previously, he released music under the name The One Am Radio. After writing, producing, and playing almost all the instruments on The One AM Radio albums, Hrishikesh had a long hiatus. In the 15-year space between his last album and this one, he created and hosted Song Exploder, an award-winning podcast and Netflix series where he interviews artists about their work in forensic and emotional detail.
After a decade of being in creative dialogue, he wanted to bring that same sense of intimacy and collaboration to his own music. In addition to working with a producer and players Shahzad Ismaily, Ken Pomeroy, Mike Haldeman, Joshua Crumbly, Oliver Hill, Sean Mullins, and Cole Kamen-Green, Dustin O’Halloran, Jon Natches (of The War On Drugs), Daniel Hart, Melina Duterte (of Jay Som), El Kempner (of Palehound), his co-writers on these songs include Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenne Lily, Jenny Owen Youngs, John Mark Nelson, Ken Pomeroy, Uwade, and TOMI. What emerges is a soundtrack for dusk—the moment when we can see the present begin to slip into the past.
