Queens-based musician Matt Longo – an eclectic singer-songwriter with alternative sensibilities – aims to craft lovingly homemade pop songs under the Thin Lear alias. Songs that sparkle and thump and unfurl with a texture and sheen all of their own. His music delivers a plaintive, sweet vocal with lush ornate arrangements and intricate human stories.
He now shares the new track Maniacs, with news of his first full-length album Wooden Cave, to be released via EggHunt Records on April 24th. The new single comes as a cross between Hot Chip and Sufjan Stevens, with the cinematic cleverness of DeVotchKa, in a narrative that explores human interaction and internet habits. The song rises and falls in a roller coaster of emotions, indicative of what’s to come on the upcoming debut album.Â
“Disillusioned people getting lost in self-destructive or just generally dangerous thinking is a major theme of this album,” the artist explains. “The narrator in ‘Maniacs’ is pitching a cult-like community to an alienated, uncherished internet dweller. And you just know it’s going to be a rapid descent for this person, that they’ll soon be indoctrinated. That relentlessly chugging beat and the quick, dynamic changes in the song reflect a desperation and rapidly changing attitude. I wanted the song to feel like one breathless, spiraling fall, from the very start, with that mellotron-laden opening. And I knew I needed a wild, unhinged sax solo at the end. It was really the only choice for the conclusion of the track.”
A delicate and captivating vocal performance wraps up Thin Lear’s sound in a way that is almost frighteningly relatable and sincerely pleasurable to listen to simultaneously. The saxophone solo perfectly captures the mind’s different tangents that strain one way or the other as emotions fluctuate and react to outside forces, erupting an energetic crescendo at the close of the piece.
Listen to Maniacs below
