Look Park – Look Park

Chris Collingwood, the lead singer of Fountains of Wayne, will release his debut album, LOOK PARK, on July 22nd; the loose-limbed psychedelic pop of first track Aeroplane premiered on Stereogum today. LOOK PARK is Chris Collingwoods first album outside of Fountains of Wayne and was recorded in collaboration with legendary producer Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Crowded House, Suzanne Vega). Shot through with earnest emotion and restless energy, LOOK PARK is unlike anything in Collingwoods 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, MA. I dont like the expression solo record, Collingwood says. It means you dont have to pay attention to it, that its really just a side project. Its band music and I thought it should have a band name. Together Collingwood and Froom concocted a truly distinctive approach for Look Park – strange and spatial, ribboned with layered keyboards, atmospheric harmonies, plate reverbs, and a whole lot of Mellotron, inspired by a shared love of The Moody Blues. It became something completely different from anything Id done before, Collingwood says. Its rock music, but owes more to an era when people still listened to whole albums. August 2015 saw Collingwood head west for a week of sessions at Frooms Santa Monica home studio, accompanied by bassist Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, Cracker) and drummer Michael Urbano (Smash Mouth, Ron Sexsmith, Todd Rundgren), a smart, crafty rhythm section adept at both subtlety and sparkling, uptempo urgency. I love singer/songwriters, Collingwood says, but I’m very proud this doesnt sound like a singer/songwriter record. It sounds like a band.