Lewis Del Mar is Danny Miller and Max Harwood, who have been making music together since the age of nine when they both played trumpet in their fourth-grade band. They formed a garage rock band in high school and spent two years touring the country in a station wagon playing dive bars until they landed in New York City, where they began writing what would become their debut album as Lewis Del Mar. Their first single “Loud(y)” was released in the summer of 2015 and piqued the interest of major news outlets and labels, effectively setting the stage for the duo’s debut self-titled album, released in 2016 to acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR and more.

The duo then spent the next few years working on their sophomore effort, AUGUST, beginning in a Rockaway Beach bungalow they converted into a studio. Recording started in the summer of 2017 as they grappled with an altered sense of normalcy after their first major tour and the release of their debut album. The emotional framework of AUGUST is rooted in the tension between the spiraling New York City summer that awaited them and the critical year-long period of reflection that followed. These disparate experiences resulted in a collection of songs that depict the way life fractures and comes back together in new forms. On AUGUST, the duo polishes and intensifies the sound introduced on their debut, employing Latin percussion indebted to Danny’s Nicaraguan heritage, and expanding upon the adventurous arrangements that first garnered them praise. The tension between the manic and reflective periods the band endured breathes new meaning into the songs. Lead single, “The Ceiling” was named one of TIME’s Best Songs of May 2020, which found the band “in sync, mellowed and more introspective than before.”