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”

‘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.

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So when we heard they we putting out The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music, a split release with fellow Floridians Yikes on their own label Viridian Sounds and the excellent It Takes Time Records (who put out this from Boosegumps), we were excited. So excited in fact we decided to ask them some questions about it.

So, Naps/Yikes…Why did you decide to put out a split release with Yikes/Naps?

Ryan: There are a ton of great bands from Tallahassee that we could’ve done a split with, but I think at least for me Yikes was an obvious choice — we have a lot of love for their musical endeavors, both in and out of Yikes, they’re great people, and they had a lot of great songs that I was really interested in producing.
Katryn: We want their coolness to rub off on us, that’s the true end goal here.
Laura: They’re the bee’s knees.
Jeremy: We’ve played so many shows with them and their songs are so good it feels like a privilege to release ours alongside theirs. They’re the goodest boys.
Yikes: Because they’re our talented Tallahassee homies! Also we love Naps because they helped yikes get a lot of shows when we were just starting out and our sounds mesh well together.

The first single, ‘Social Skills’, is something of a departure from the sound on You Will Live in a Cool Box, is this a sign of things to come on the record?

Ryan: This new EP is a different type of record than our first one was for sure — a little less representative of our live show but maybe a little more realized in terms of where we could take things. But I would say it reflects a different side of the band rather than an intentional departure from where we were at when we recorded Cool Box. We just got into the studio to start working on our full-length and I don’t know that either EP is more indicative of how that’ll end up sounding than the other.
Jeremy: Yeah, in terms of production it’s definitely a huge difference—the first EP was very lo-fi and was recorded full-band. Our side of this split is more assembled of individually or separately recorded tracks—I don’t think all four of us actually play on any one of the songs.
Laura: I think the split is just one version of the way we want to hear our songs, a version that wouldn’t lend itself well in our live setup.

What are the prevalent themes on The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music?

Ryan: I didn’t think of You Will Live In A Cool Box as a break-up record when we were making it, but it centered a lot on the experience of falling out of love and feeling kind of out of step with the world as a consequence of that experience. I think The Most Beautiful Place on Earth to me is partially about having that out of step feeling even when the variable of love loss is removed.
Yikes: The most frequent theme on the split is probably insecurity, social anxiety and getting used to adult relationships.
Katryn: The song I wrote on the split is actually the first song I had ever written, and it’s also about falling out of love and how much it sucks to be stuck in close proximity to someone who has hurt you, which is definitely a very prevalent theme in a lot of what I’ve written for Naps thus far. Stanley and I recorded it two and a half years ago, before Naps even existed, and it was our first time really hanging out and also how we became friends! We went to a party later that night and made a bloodless blood pact to be friends forever. Sorry this isn’t super related to the question but it’s a cute story so YOU’RE WELCOME.
Laura: Why wasn’t I a part of this bloodless blood pact?
Katryn: Because you are the queen of my life and I am the Vice President of the Laura fan club so I think it goes without saying that we are never going to not be friends, you fool!

The release is being put out by It Takes Time Records, as well as Naps’ own Viridian Sounds. Would you like to explain how the partnership with It Takes Time came about?

Ryan: Jordan from It Takes Time actually got in contact with us way back in 2015 about putting out Cool Box, but we weren’t able to go through with it in the end because of scheduling reasons — we ended up just doing it ourselves so that we’d have tapes to sell on tour, and that’s how Viridian ended up getting started. We still really wanted to work with ITT, plus they put out a bunch of great stuff in the time between our two releases, so we hit Jordan up when we were working on the new stuff.
Yikes: Stanley said he had the plug and he delivered.

The single is also being released on a new digital single imprint of Viridian Sounds called Lavender Sounds. What can people expect of this new venture?

Ryan: Lavender Sounds is an idea that came out of my love for single-oriented music, especially older twee imprints from the 80’s and 90’s that put out an enormous amount of great pop music on 7” and flexidisc singles. It’s still in the early stages of being a thing, but ultimately we’d like to be able to use it to foster an artistic community that can interact by contributing to this ongoing collection of music.

Could you describe Naps in three words?
http://tinyurl.com/ztux95q

What is Naps’ spirit animal? Why do you say so?

Orca Whale because of their humble power and compassion.

If you could arrange to put Naps on a split release with any other band (alive or dead) then who would it be?

Beat Happening mainly because I know Ryan loves them and they are definitely a noticeable influence on naps

In your humble opinion, who is the best band ever to arise from Tallahassee?

T-Pain

Finally, could you name five acts that we’d be fools not to listen to?

-Poster (Tampa)
-Swept (Tampa)
-Woolbright (Davie)
–Honeyuck (Tallahasse)
-Annacrusis (Tallahassee)
-Souljaboytellem.com

Could you describe Yikes in three words?

Ryan: Tite spicy memes
Laura: what I want
Jeremy: Double Bacon Cheese
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

What is Yikes’ spirit animal? Why do you say so?

Ryan: Yikes’ spirit animal is an exeggutor coz they have many faces. And they love plants.
Laura: A porcupine – yikes! look out for those spikes
Jeremy: A Dry Bones from the Super Mario series— dry, skeletal, and almost obliviously cool
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

If you could arrange to put Yikes on a split release with any other band (alive or dead) then who would it be?

Ryan: The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Laura: Why?
Jeremy: Deerhunter
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

In your humble opinion, who is the best band ever to arise from Tallahassee?

Ryan: Hmm, there’s a few directions you could go with this. I feel like the obvious lol answer is Creed, and the obvious legit answer is T-Pain… that being said almost anyone who is involved in the scene here will tell you that Ex-Breathers is the greatest Tallahassee band, which is pretty much objectively the right answer.
Laura: I’m a huge fan of Lauren Morgan’s voice, who used to be in USA-Holes from Tally before she started up SALES in Orlando. Also Cleats <3
Katryn: Ex-Breathers are the most talented sweethearts, and there are a lot of other great Tallahassee bands worth mentioning too, like Night Witch, Nostradogmus, and Blemish!
Jeremy: Yeah Ex-Breathers is literally the best band in the entire world. Shouts out also to Echo Base, Lingua Franca, orangesoda, Capital 6, Silt, Surface to Air Missive, Melt Channel, too many to list honestly, and Katryn covered my other favorites already.

Finally, could you name five acts that we’d be fools not to listen to?
Ryan: Future, Young Thug, Teen Suicide,
Laura: GRIMES!!
Jeremy: To pick just five right now…….. Carly Rae Jepsen, BOOSEGUMPS, JANK, Long Neck, Kississippi.
Katryn: NEW FLORIST NEW PORCHES NEW JAWBREAKER REUNION NEW TALL FRIEND <3

You can pre-order The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music via It Takes Time Records or Viridian Sounds.

The post Interview: Naps & Yikes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“This is by no means a perfect album, but it’s mine, and I’m proud. This album is for all of my friends, here, there, and everywhere, past present and future. This album is for my family. This album is for my dog.

For those of you who want some sonic comparisons, think the thematic content of Free Cake For Every Creature‘s last release, paired with Cyberbully Mom Club‘s at times fraught, on-the-verge-of-tears delivery, meets Two White Cranes‘s blend of slower folky bedroom pop and louder indie rock. Things are often personal and sometimes delicate and sometimes rough and energetic (something Mastrodimos owes to her work with Jawbreaker Reunion). I’m not sure what else to say, other than what you get is ten really nice songs that will probably make your day feel a little bit better.

The album opens with ‘Lullaby’, which slinks along at the start and threatens and threatens and finally explodes into life after Mastrodimos delivers the line “I want to believe there is something coming!” It’s a nice little moment and one I have found myself anticipating eagerly as I’ve been playing the album this past week or so. It’s one of those small sections of song that make you go “yeah!” to yourself and want to sort of wave your head about a bit. The track deals with post-collegiate crises of confidence and ego, of the fact that all us supposed “adults” are perhaps not quite where we’re expected to be. “We can talk about sex” she sings, “we can drink our 40s alone, but we’re still kids, fuck we are just kids”.

‘Salt’ begins with gently tumbling guitar and flowing vocals, the closest thing to a chrous a series of echoey guitar interludes. It picks up speed throughout, ending in runaway fashion as Mastrodimos repeats the line “do you know if there’s salt for the frostbit?” The title track is an acoustic song with rattled percussion, part moving away song, part love song, at it’s best when at its most earnestly romantic, “When the world was spinning all too fast, I wanted to feel dewy grass / But the city scene across from the heights, filters out the stars at night / And this bronze and golden view, I want to share it all with you”. ‘Cetacean Nation’ is one of my current favourites and one of the tracks that really brought to mind CMBC. A half-sardonic, half-heartfelt ode to getting older, it comes complete with a chorus about sitting with your feet in a swimming pool and a Mr Rogers sample in the middle in which he asks,

“What does seem bad to you?
Is it hitting other kids?
Or calling them names?
Is it messing up a room?
Or saying no, no, no.”

‘Ludlow’ has a frantic acoustic guitar strum, while ‘The Good & The Bad’ utilizes the quiet-quiet-loud-quiet dynamic really well. ‘Dogstar’ has strange lyrics and a ragged lo-fi aesthetic, opening with the line, “Someone took a needle to the sky, and kept missing the vein they were trying they were trying”.’Six Pack’ is a melancholy acoustic track (“You’re alone again, alone again, you don’t know why”), and ‘Hunger (Apology Song)’ switches things up with a flourish of lo-fi indie rock, in which Mastrodimos yells increduously, “This is madness! It’s cruelty! It’s fucking messed up!”, a sentiment I think everyone can relate to at some point or other. Closer ‘The Woods’ then changes suit again, this time a folk-flecked track with banjo and suitably woodsy lyrics:

“Too early fireflies, washed out by rain,
the bats flew far out and came back again,
they kept me company, and i was grateful for it “

Heights is a really good album, and one which reflects life rather nicely, with moments of hushed quiet and moments of spiky energy, of worry and sadness and carefree abandon. It captures that feeling of creeping slowly over that threshold into adulthood and the revelation that it turns out not to be the whole new room you always thought, that growing up is an exhausting, exhilarating series of events that takes a lifetime to complete. You can get the album on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Long Neck Bandcamp page.

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