In times of change, it makes sense to listen to music that accompanies that change. Folk has always been about that, but what Nap Eyes do, and have always done, has never really been folk, but a non-linear study – and that’s the right word, “study” – of how we can abstract ourselves from that idea. From the idea of folk as a concrete, defined thing. It can be an enigma, something that starts at one end and ends at another, with several twists and turns in between.
Nigel Chapman, Brad Loughead, Josh Salter and Seamus Dalton started playing together just over ten years ago in Halifax, Canada. They have released five albums to date, the latest, The Neon Gate (Paradise Of Bachelors), released in the fall of 2024, broke a four-year silence and reinforces this idea of how to break the evidence in safe territory, that is, how this can sound like something that is more than voice, guitar, bass, drums. So Nap Eyes’ folk is more of a paper thing, it’s a continuous sign that things are changing, for us, for them, within a song. The narratives that Chapman sings explore unexpected ideas, mix philosophy, physics and video games, without any of the elements being what we think they are, but something non-linear, that wants to escape the warnings of the road signs.
It’s true: today we want to find a revolution in every corner. We want what we hear, see or even the friends we spend time with to justify that investment. Because we’ve gotten used to this idea that our time is valuable, an investment. And things have to go somewhere. With that in mind, Nap Eyes’ music isn’t a revolution, there’s little new in it. However, this lack of novelty, immediate explosion, is compensated for by unpredictability, by the way a pop song suddenly lets in a guitar that comes from somewhere else and stays there, as if it were living in another song. But no, it’s there. And we construct or deconstruct that idea as we see fit. Nap Eyes give us the tools to live their songs however we want. If we want it to be that revolution, that’s fine too. But we prefer it to be a thing of quiet fascination. To love while waiting for summer to arrive. AS

In the rift between sound design, early emo, rock and pop, Horse Vision continues to elaborate on an alternative approach to traditional songwriting with a somewhat definitive, future-forward guitar music aesthetic. With the release of their 13-track album “Another Life”, Horse Vision conglomerates a distinct selection of acoustic instruments and their synthesized counterparts; the acoustic guitar and it’s synthetic equivalent, the recorded vocal and the vocaloid – weaving a musical landscape that is at once sincere and strangely familiar. When performing live, the foundation on which the band originates is at most evident, consisting of a classic rock trio setting with bass, drums and guitars.