Hibou

Seattle-based artist Peter Michel records under the name Hibou, shaping a woozy variety of melodic dream pop whose inward-looking lyrics mirror the dissociative condition he lives with. After his first EP, Dunes, drew interest from the Seattle independent label Barsuk Records, he refined his approach across three favorably received full-lengths, among them the 2019 release Halve.

During his high-school years Michel became the drummer for the West Coast dream pop group Craft Spells, logging nearly eight months of dates across the United States and Europe. Shortly afterward he began experiencing depersonalization, a condition that leaves those affected feeling detached from their own bodies as if watching from outside. Seeking relief from the resulting anxiety, he launched the Hibou project and started writing hazy bedroom-pop material whose expansive melodies and gleaming guitar textures evoked an oneiric atmosphere. He issued Dunes independently in 2013; Barsuk then put out his self-recorded, self-titled debut album two years later. Having performed every instrument on that record, Michel assembled a road band to take Hibou onstage, supporting acts such as Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Phantogram. To expand the project’s sonic range he enlisted producer Dylan Wall and, working in a professional studio with his touring musicians, tracked the richer, more detailed 2018 album Something Familiar. The following year saw the arrival of Hibou’s third LP, Halve, which explored themes of melancholy and transition in greater depth.