Hrishikesh Hirway Releases New EP 'Rooms I Used To Call My Own'

Acclaimed musician and Song Exploder host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway's first EP under his own name, Rooms I Used to Call My Own, is out now.

The album features collaborations with a long list of acclaimed artists, songwriters and producers including Yo-Yo Ma, Jay Som, Baths, Jenny Owen Youngs, Jimmy Tamborello (The Postal Service, Dntel), Jonathan Snipes (Clipping), John Mark Nelson and Grammy-winners John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen) and Kimbra.

In celebration of the EP's release, Hirway is debuting the track "Seams" featuring Baths. Hirway previously premiered the tracks "Between There and Here" featuring Yo-Yo Ma, "Home" featuring Jay Som, and "Stillness."

Rooms I Used to Call My Own marks the first time Hirway has released music under his own name following five critically acclaimed records under the moniker The One AM Radio. A deeply personal work, the EP is informed by Hirway's experiences as a podcast host; eschewing the inward gaze of his previous work as an artist, Rooms I Used to Call My Own instead focuses on collaboration, each song formed out of a conversation of sorts with everyone he's brought into the project with him. Likewise, the subjects of the EP are all other people: the people he loves. The songs are about the deep love and appreciation he holds for his wife, Lindsey, as well as his parents and family.

"I spent so many years apart from making my own songs, and I didn't know how, or even if, I would find a way back," explains Hirway. "The way I got out of my own head, finally, was by actually listening to some of the insights that artists on Song Exploder had shared, and to try writing with other people. Just as I was figuring that out, my mom passed away, and then, all I wanted to write about were the people closest to me."

Hirway is also set to continue his Spring tour with Jenny Owen Youngs, performing select dates throughout the west coast in May. They'll be on stage together, doing one combined set of all their songs, performing as a duo. Jenny and Hrishikesh have collaborated as co-writers on several songs and are both storytellers, as hosts of popular, award-winning podcasts: Hrishikesh with Song Exploder, The West Wing Weekly and Home Cooking; and Jenny with Buffering the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars Investigations. These special performances will be a mix of songs and stories from two dear friends; find tickets here and see below for a list of dates.

Hrishikesh Hirway has been producing music for over two decades; first with his project The One AM Radio, and later with MOORS, a collaboration with Oscar-nominated rapper/actor Lakeith Stanfield. As a composer, his credits include the Netflix original series Everything Sucks!, the theme for ESPN's 30 for 30 podcast and the theme for the Song Exploder series on Netflix.

Hirway launched the award-winning podcast Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and tell the stories behind their inspiration and creative process, in 2014. Since then, the podcast has been streamed and downloaded over 65 million times, and has featured guests including Fleetwood Mac, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Solange, U2, Arcade Fire, Metallica, Lin-Manuel Miranda, The Roots and many more.

Besides Song Exploder, Hirway produced and co-hosted the award-winning podcasts Home Cooking with Samin Nosrat, and The West Wing Weekly with Joshua Malina, all of which are on the Radiotopia podcast network. He's also the host and creator of the Partners podcast. He helped Google launch their first original podcast, and is the executive producer of Shirley Manson's podcast, The Jump, for Mailchimp. Last August, Fast Company named Hirway one of 2021's Most Creative People in Business.

Listen to the new EP here:

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