Following 2014’s This Is Not A Bedroom, and 2016’s ‘Trembles’ double single (which centred on a short story by lead Alex Cohen), Austin quartet Alex Napping are set to release their sophomore full-length Mise En Place this May. Expanding on the themes of the previous releases, the album sees Cohen utilise her evocative, detailed songwriting to explore some pretty complex and relevant themes (“the struggle to evade traditionalism, define personal success, and balance the expectations of love,” according the press release), meaning the tracks are not cast in single shades of happiness or sadness, love or fear, rather everything at once, all mixed together with a double helping of doubt and the paradoxical yet persistent sensation that life can be be made easier, little by little.
The first single, ‘Living Room’, highlights the growing maturity and cohesion of the band and serves as a mission statement for the album as a whole. Using the idea of spaces both literally and as figuratively, the song charts the tension that comes with forming, sharing and losing bonds with people and places, and how without compromise and conscious attempts at balance, unequal commitments will lead to guilt and pain.
Yet, while understandably wistful and a little brooding, there’s a lightness to the track too, something within individual notes or Cohen’s lyrics which floats above the most frustrated moments. As such, the track feels less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly. This sense of purpose is highlighted in the closing refrain, which sounds like a long-lost pop hit fronted by Patti Smith.
“There’s a living room
Filled with all of our stuff
I can’t get it to move
Without unsettling dust”
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Mise En Place is set for release on the 5th May and you can pre-order it on vinyl/CD from Father/Daughter Records, on cassette from Sports Day Records, or digitally via the Alex Napping Bandcamp.
Photo by Helmut Studio