Lower Dens' Jana Hunter was born in Texas, one of eight children in an insular, repressed Catholic family. In the early 2000s Hunter moved to New York, where they released two critically acclaimed solo records on the indie label Gnomonsong, started by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic . These were sparse, introspective works, part of Hunter's overall effort to make sense of who they were and where they had come from. In 2007 they relocated to Baltimore, excited about its music and community, and formed Lower Dens as part of a conscious decision to make music within a social context. The band’s first three albums — Twin-Hand Movement, Nootropics & Escape From Evil — formed a narrative about finding community and identifying one’s responsibilities. This trajectory was interrupted by personal crises including frustrating battles with mental health and a gender transition they had been deferring for many years. “I repressed the idea for a long time,” Hunter says, “but I’ve been going through both medical and social transitions, from living as a woman to a non-binary person and now toward the other end of the binary.” The Competition (out September 6, 2019 via Ribbon Music) draws on influences ranging across decades of Western pop music and chronicles messy, vulnerable humanity at a time of upheaval and chaos — through immersive, four-minute songs meant to give pleasure as much as provoke self-examination. It channels an urgent, restless desire to connect.