Laika Songs – High School
Brooklyn musician Evan Brock releases “High School” from his second Laika Songs album I Can Feel an Ending, out December 5 via Two Worlds/Galaxy Train. It’s one beautiful song from a stunning album, sitting in the second half among the more immediate tracks like the gentle power-pop gem “Optimism Shame”, the shimmering “The Plan”, and the short, repeatable “Press Coverage”.
Brock assembled an impressive group for the record: Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Kris Hayes (Labrador, Neil Jung) on guitars, Dominic Angelella on bass, Dan Bailey (Father John Misty) on drums, Joseph Shabason on saxophone and flute, vocalists Chanele McGuinness and Heaven Schmitt, and Abby Gundersen on violin and viola. He reached out to potential players with nothing but demos and deep knowledge of their musical histories, letting stems serve as signposts while finished products diverged from original designs.
The song captures memory and nostalgia, moving between driving on the highway with broken windshield wipers and being transported back to summer on a cul-de-sac. Brock describes wanting Laika Songs to sound like looking up through trees and seeing sky peeking through, when light hits the leaves just right. That intersection of natural and artificial plays out across the album—fragmented synth lines mix with lumbering acoustic guitars and saxophones.
Brock calls I Can Feel an Ending the other side of the coin from his debut Slowly Spiraling Towards the Light—a little darker, stranger, exploring the edges of what the project can be. He uses “lyrical slippage” as a technique, where lines rub against one another unevenly, creating friction around time, space, and shared anxieties. The songs amble through self-doubt but find hope amid despair.
He recorded most of his parts—guitar, piano, mellotron, organ, synths, harmonica, samplers, percussion, vocals—in his apartment office and Sean McVerry’s apartment, with additional sessions in California, North Carolina, Ireland, New York, Washington, and Ontario. Philip Weinrobe mixed it, Josh Bonati mastered it, and Pat Perry created the cover painting.
Tracklist:
- Visitor
- Shaking
- Turned Around
- Arpeggiator
- High School
- Still Gap
- Optimism Shame
- The Plan
- Press Coverage
- Sinking
- I Get Lost
