Earlier today, Kansas City-based psych pop producer Heads or Heads premiered a new video on The Daily Dose for “Lake,” the closing song from his latest record, Low Angles.

Filmed by the project’s Alex Harbolt (who is also a filmmaker by day), “Lake” is a idyllic snapshot of the lake that inspired the song coupled with Harbolt’s friends shot before COVID-19 made tight-knit barbecues and swimming a temporary impossibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFmovaYvuoc&utm_source=Planetary+Group+Press+Release+List&utm_campaign=f7e2eabc80-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d5d417bd2f-f7e2eabc80-93975893

The song fittingly concludes an album built on idealism, framed around a trip to Los Angeles Harbolt took with his girlfriend in 2018.

“It was the first time in LA for both of us and I remember being there and so many crazy things kept happening that in my head, I was going ‘I can make an album out of this,” he says. “I grew up in rural Missouri and always wondered what places like LA would be like; it’s sort of been a dream to live there for a while now. And being there in person was a very surreal experience.”

Low Angles is out now on cassette and all digital platforms. 

From shimmering synth pop to sample-heavy chillwave anchored by singer/producer Alex Harbolt‘s signature filtered vocals, Heads or Heads offers a sprawl of sounds cobbled together within the confines of the Midwest. 

Primarily a filmmaker, Harbolt tip-toed his way into music with Heads or Heads’ first LP in 2018, the psych-chillwave hybrid Am Enigma. The 10-track album was originally only to be a gift to a friend, heard by friends and a few family members, but quickly began spreading upon uploading it online.

His sophomore album, Low Angles, was written and recorded over the entirety of 2019 after a trip to Los Angeles with his girlfriend inspired a soft idea for a concept record on California idealism to a Kansas City-based artist. While firmly rooted in idealism, Low Angles is by far the most developed work Harbolt had put out as a songwriter and producer.

“I made [Heads or Heads’ debut] Am Enigma in about two months time, completely by myself in my apartment,” he adds. “I really had no idea what I was doing, I had never extensively used music making software or had any formal musical training. It was very much a run and gun process. Low Angles is almost exactly the opposite of that; I’ve worked on it for almost 18 months now. I listen back to the first album and I cringe at it because I’ve learned so much more since then.”