Long Neck is the solo project of Lily Mastrodimos (of Jawbreaker Reunion) who you may remember released a great album, Heights, last summer. Since then Mastrodimos has released some demos, a single, and now this small collection of songs titled spring cleaning.
The release follows a similar blueprint to previous Long Neck output, folky bedroom pop songs that straddle the line between reflective and hopeful. ‘the magician’ is a sparse and quiet track about thinking of someone late at night, about wanting to call them and not knowing why. It’s followed by ‘rosy’, a gently bittersweet bedroom folk song about having fun in the snow with a fearless dog and losing someone close to you, about recovery and trying to see the world (and yourself) as a place that’s amazing and kind and hopeful.
“To wear a pair of rosy lenses
and to see a world in myself progressing
is everything”
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‘artemis and orion’ is something of a break-up song, while ‘matriach’ is a seemingly long-promised ode to a strong and beloved family member, as Mastrodimos sings “you summoned flowers from the ground, said ‘don’t let the bastards get you down'”. ‘lichen’ uses the titular organism as a metaphor for human symbiosis (“let me cling to you when conditions are right, and i can shrink away at the coming light”) and closer ‘southern cities’ is about as jolly as this collection of songs gets, a travelling song about seeing amazing things on the road and wishing certain people were there to see them too.
You can get spring cleaning on a name-your-price basis from the Long Neck Bandcamp page.