After releasing a series of singles across the last year or so, Brooklyn art pop duo MAN LEE (that’s Sam Reichman & Tim Lee) have just released their debut album, Hefty Wimpy. An exploration of “misaligned expectations of the self and others,” the record spans multiple flavours of pop, rock and psych, resulting in something fresh and technicolored but always with a slight cynical air of detached cool. “Much of the album stems from the feeling of being resigned to our fates,” the band describe. “Though not disappointed. Just acknowledging what it is, where expectations have been met or not—right or wrong—and moving on.”
To celebrate the album’s release, the band have released one final single, closing track ‘Night Driving’. Drawing together strands of sleepy psych and propulsive post punk, the track follows a meandering dream-logic towards its spiky finale, where the tension of self-censure that lies latent from the off finally bubbles to the surface. The band have also made a video to accompany the track. The animation, hand-drawn by Reichman, captures the song both literally and thematically, as a night-time drive turns strange and surreal from the safety of the backseat. “It’s funny the way we form memories,” she explains. “That’s what I got to play with here, re-creating a sequence of moments from the POV of a kid dozing off in the back seat of the family car: a trip to the bank, through the pneumatic tube to reach the lollipop at the end, then dozing off into a more surreal dream state.”
Hefty Wimpy is out now and available from the MAN LEE Bandcamp page.
