Chris Collingwood, the lead singer of Fountains of Wayne, will release his debut album, Look Park , on July 22nd via crush-worthy label Yep Roc Records; the loose-limbed groovy lead single “Aeroplane,” premiered via Stereogum.
Look Park is Chris Collingwood’s first album outside of Fountains of Wayne; shot through with earnest emotion and restless energy, it is unlike anything in Collingwood’s already extraordinary canon, a fact affirmed by his decision to dub both the album and overall project as “Look Park,” the name borrowed from a favorite green space in his hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts. “I don’t like the expression ‘solo record,'” Collingwood says. “It means you don’t have to pay attention to it, it’s really just a side project. It really felt important to me to give this a proper name, so I’m in service to this idea, as opposed to just narcissism.”
Collingwood returned home after touring the world in support of Fountains of Wayne’s most recent record, Sky Full Of Holes, and began writing new material immediately. The next three years saw him demoing over 100 new songs with acoustic guitar, MIDI, and a range of complex but spare percussion sounds – tambourines, shakers, everything up to a full kit.
“It was a matter of trying to find a distinctive voice from Fountains of Wayne,” Collingwood says. “It was liberating to know I could arrange them any way I wanted, I could write songs the band could never play live as a four-piece rock band.”
With producer Mitchell Froom, the pair concocted a truly distinctive musical palette for Look Park, strange and spatial, ribboned with layered keyboards, atmospheric harmonies, and prominent use of Mellotrons inspired by a shared love of The Moody Blues. “It became something completely different than anything I’d done before,” Collingwood says.
Grab your earbuds and check out “Aeroplane”:
Pre-order LOOK PARK: https://lnk.to/LookPark
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