Well, great news! Next month sees the release of Sugar Rush Volume Two, a brand new collection of songs to be sold in support of Queer Oriented Radical Days of Summer. QORDS is an overnight camp for queer or gender non-conforming young people from the American South. Using music and community as forces of queer empowerment, the organisation helps create intersectional spaces where people can pursue self-discovery safely and, most importantly, meet others from the entire queer spectrum, be they lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, or whatever else. In other words, a pretty cool place indeed.

We’re delighted to share a new track from the release, one from another of our favourites, Lily Mastrodimos’ Long Neck. Relying on nothing beyond acoustic guitar, the song opens with an immediately warm and wistful sound, Mastrodimos’ vocals pitched somewhere between fondness and heartbreak, a not entirely uncomfortable place where affection is allowed to linger. Eventually, the guitar is joined by some fleshed out instrumentation, including some whimsical whistling, making for a dreamy, charming close where loss looms light and loose, free of any regret.

“I thought he and I were so alike
same dumb smile with a half closed eye
same big heart and love of all things sweet
same crooked teeth

I got lost in that reflection”

Artwork by Kassie Salas

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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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