fantasy of a broken heart – “Loss”
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A couple months ago, we named fantasy of a broken heart a Band To Watch. The New York oddballs are preparing for the release of their debut album Feats Of Engineering, and so far they’ve shared the singles “AFV” and “Ur Heart Stops.” Today, they’re back with the jaunty earworm “Loss.”
“There’s always a tension in songwriting between simplicity and excess,” Bailey Wollowitz said about the track. They continued:
Especially in the home digital recording era, it’s hard to ignore an anxious tugging at the endless possibilities of overdubbing and arrangement. Why not put a string section on every song? In these moments of preoccupation, I often came back to the first few Unknown Mortal Orchestra records, which have always inspired me as pieces of work that achieve sonic maximalism with very minimal arrangements; a perfect hybrid between the euphoric peaks of the later Beatles catalogue and the roughest sounding Jay Reatard demo. The song “Loss” started as a word on a piece of paper and a desire to capture a complex feeling in a simple way. Memory loss, hearing loss, loss of love, loss of a loved one. Getting lost in yourself. This was the first song demoed for the album, and was a turning point for realizing that there was nowhere to hide with being honest about this stuff. By the final mix we had stripped back the layers and left it as it was meant to be: a little song with a lot to say. We also lost some of the drum stems along the way.
The duo — made up of Wollowitz and Al Nardo — also serve as touring members of Water From Your Eyes, who just released a covers EP, as well as This Is Lorelei, whose recent LP Box For Buddy, Box For Star was our Album Of The Week. Check out “Loss” below.
Feats Of Engineering is out 9/27 on on Dots Per Inch.