“I think the main thing here is that in my solo music endeavours I was completely focused on the singularity of my ideas. Meanwhile, during those times every other part of my life has always taken on a very collaborative and communal structure in general,” Collins says. “There’s certain peers of mine who I really look up to and have always inspired me and I’ve been insanely lucky to work with them closely on this project. In turn I’ve come to the conclusion that the most obvious music path in my future is one rooted more in community than ever before.”
The most well known guest is undoubtedly Ariel Pink, but plenty of listeners will be familiar with Weyes Blood and Mr. Twin Sister and other contributors including members of Holy Shit!, Mild High Club, and Mac DeMarco’s touring band. Collins was already friends with the majority of guests, which made collaboration relatively easy.
“Other than Ariel, I’ve known all of those people intimately prior to them becoming household names in the independent music conversation, so it genuinely was never any intention to involve anyone except the people who I’ve been working alongside of for years and years,” he says.
Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering takes the lead vocal on the album’s lead single, Suddenly, as well as its title track. Collins says a team up with Mering has been a long time coming.
“[She] was my roommate around five years ago in Baltimore in this old spooky house that was essentially one step away from a squat. Every day there I would hear her working on her gorgeous haunting songscapes literally coming down from the attic where she lived. Our whole time being friends I think we’ve gotten closer and closer and it’s safe to say that she’s really responsible for a lot of what I’ve been writing now.”
Ariel Pink co-wrote and sings lead vocals on the record’s second single, the woozy pop number Easy to Forget. Unsurprisingly, he proved to be an exciting creative foil.
“It goes without saying that becoming friends with him and being able to write stuff together is one of the greatest joys and excitements I’ve ever felt,” Collins says. “His ideas are endless and in him I found someone who I could relate to as an obsessively curious songwriter.”
The extensive list of personnel is reflected in the extent of stylistic territory covered by The End Of Comedy. The record contains driving folk rock songs akin to Fleetwood Mac, classic pop songwriting resembling Carol King, oddball pop a la the Beach Boys and flourishes of lounge jazz and experimental song structures.
“For the last few years in which I worked on this album I’ve really been into something sort of specific. I would say its ‘70s singer/songwriter pop, but really the reason for [the broad range of The End Of Comedy] comes from a style inside that era of music which I feel at home around. It’s the sound of someone really wanting to say something and meaning it – the sound of the lyrics not being obscured by anything.
“I think my friend Mac Demarco is someone who shares that sensibility and taste for the direct translation of feelings that you can easily hear. I feel like it’s missing in a lot of what people in the indie world talk about as pop. Pop music used to communicate emotion in a beautifully direct way back then.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
