Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich launch Dragonflies with ‘Slower’
The longtime friends will release Dragonflies’ self-titled debut album Sept. 18 through Dark Horse Records/BMG.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
2 min read
Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich have turned a lockdown-era exchange into a new band, Dragonflies, and the pair have already sent out the first taste: a track called “Slower.”
Rolling Stone reported that Dragonflies will release its self-titled debut album on Sept. 18 via Dark Horse Records/BMG. “Slower” opens the album’s track list and is serving as the lead single.
The project brings together Harrison, a musician who has often overseen his own work, and Godrich, the producer widely known for his work with Radiohead. According to Rolling Stone, the two are longtime friends whose new collaboration began after Harrison reached out to Godrich during the Covid shutdown.
At the time, Harrison was looking for input while working on music that later became his 2023 solo album, Innerstanding, Rolling Stone reported. Their conversations eventually turned into a fuller working partnership at Godrich’s studio in Brixton, where they started building songs from tape loops.
A slow-burn first look
The “Slower” video was directed by RUFFMERCY and uses the director’s hand-drawn animation style, according to Rolling Stone. The clip follows a person moving at an easy pace through a town, woods, a field and other natural spaces.
Rolling Stone reported that another figure appears as the song’s calm opening section develops. Later in the video, the pair move through an abandoned building and walk along a beach near the water.
The single’s reflective mood is underlined by one of Harrison’s lines in the song: “Is it too late? Now I’ve had a taste,” he sings, according to Rolling Stone. “So I’m taking it slower. Are we too far gone?”
How the band came together
Godrich described the writing process in a statement as a back-and-forth built on instinct. “It’s like one person throwing something in the air and the other person catching it,” he said.
Harrison said in a statement that the setup put him in a different position from his usual creative routine. Rolling Stone reported that he took on the role of singer and guitarist while Godrich shaped the material during the sessions.
“He’s a machine,” Harrison said of Godrich in the statement. “He has strong opinions about what he wants to hear, and for me it’s very humbling. That’s why it’s such a new experience.”
With “Slower,” Dragonflies have introduced the first piece of a debut album built from a friendship, a studio in Brixton and a process the band members describe as one idea being tossed up for the other to catch.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.