Some songs are finished in a day. Some take much longer. For Nick Leng, “Spirals” was the latter.
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Written during the pandemic when the South African-born, Los Angeles-based artist found himself falling in love again, “Spirals,” the title track off his upcoming second album, twists around being captivated of another. I’m falling in love again, with / I’m falling fast repeats Long through the lush, piano-driven track. In its intoxicating thumps, “Spirals” follows the racing heartbeat of someone falling madly and deeply for someone and crescendos around the pushes and pulls of love by the end.
“It goes high and low,” says Leng. “It was such a necessary color. But there’s also humor in the end with all the wrong notes and jazz. That’s my personality.”
Leng adds, “So much experimentation went into making this one—countless nights staying up at night figuring out all the parts. ‘It’s my baby,’ I often tell friends when I show them this one. It’s very special to me because it has a lot of my personality in it, as well as a story of me finding love again.”
Following up his 2020 debut LEMONS, which centered around the end of a relationship and the death of a dear friend, Leng finds himself on another side with Spirals.
Surrounded by nature, living in a trailer park in Topanga County, California, during the pandemic, Leng began tapping into certain aspects of the human condition and new beginnings on the Spirals track “My Mind Is a Mess in the Morning.” He tackled the light-and-dark of isolated days on “Morning/Midnight,” and met his soulmate mid-way through writing.
“There’s a lot of romance in the record,” says Leng. “I had these moments of peak love and joy and life, but also, like that trailer park in Topanga, eventually became rat infested.”
Spirals Track List
01. Forget About Me
02. Two Birds
03. Platform
04. My Mind is a Mess in the Morning
05. Bobby
06. Morning / Midnight
07. Spirals
08. Coffee & Fruit
09. Easy
10. Pull Over
11. Glisten by the Wind (Interlude)
12. Candles
13. Ruth
14. Goodbye My Friends
Photo: Courtesy Tell All Your Friends PR
