Q&A: Transporting Listeners to Another World, Middle Part Talks Their Upcoming EP, ‘Time Is Elastic,’ Original Concepts & More
IN A DREAM-LIKE WORLD — anything is possible. Or, as Middle Part (aka Andrew Selkōw) refers to it, “fever-dream-type-Y2K-nostalgic-escape.” This is what Brooklyn-based Middle Part’s upcoming sophomore EP, Time Is Elastic consists of: a land in which daydreams exist.
During the thick of the pandemic, Selkōw took on the task of making the dreary outside world their own beast, creating a concept album in which life as we knew it was no longer holding us back — instead, this land was accompanied by a ’90s-inspired ethereal, psychedelic, and consuming soundtrack, where listeners were transported to another place within their own minds.
Read below to learn more about Middle Part’s world, their next music moves, and what Selkōw is listening to (it’s a good one).
LUNA: It’s great talking today — I'm a huge fan. I’d love for you to share a little bit about who you are and what you’ve been working on lately to start things off.
SELKŌW: Thank you for having me. As far as an intro, I make what I call unconventional pop music. I’m originally from a town in Florida called Melbourne Beach. In 2017 I moved to Alaska, and that’s when I started writing and self-recording on my own. I spent a year there writing in what was pretty much isolation and eventually decided to move to New York with hopes of playing in a band. When I first got to Brooklyn I was producing music for other people with Brian Zaremba (who is the other half of Middle Part). We did that for almost a year, and towards the end of 2019 he asked me if I wanted to do Middle Part full-time. I didn’t really even know how to write music back then and mostly just produced and played instruments, but in quarantine we started working together every day and about six months later the project began to really take form.
We put out our first record at the end of 2020 and then started evolving our sound. For this upcoming EP we got out of the city to do a lot of the writing. My dad has a tiny house property near Nashville and so we rented that for a month where we finished about half of it. The other half of the recording was split between LA and then our loft studio here in Brooklyn.
LUNA: Sweet, can you tell us more about the concept of the project?
SELKŌW: I wanted to do a concept record — I was feeling pretty fucked up during the pandemic… Well, we all were. Everything felt drab and gloomy outside. Nobody was walking around, you know? So I had this idea to do a concept record surrounding another place. As we were navigating how we wanted the record to sound, I started to turn my room into a personal project that quickly became an obsession. I built out my room to be this fever dream–type, Y2K, nostalgic escape, turning my bedroom walls into a canvas and collaging them with posters of my biggest influences and inspirations from the early millennium and ’90s era. The idea was to create a space that could serve as an escapist’s haven. I wanted to live within my art as well as invite others to come in and experience it as well.
The duality of the space is key. Because everything was so drab outside, the space was vibrant. The unorganized, collage style of the room also doubles as a chaotic representation of my brain — every track on the record touches on things like mental health, addiction, my experiences with dissociation, and my desire to escape. The record explores being split between this fucked up world and this dream one I was creating. It is a very vibrant, colorful, acid-trippy space that I would make my music in. As a result, all of the songs on this record have a nostalgic, escapist type of world that they exist in.
LUNA: How was that process for you?
SELKŌW: It was fun, but it was also very challenging. Between making the music itself and the visual aid surrounding the project, it took a lot of time. Building the room alone took me two months, with all of the collaging and the painting I did. All of the elements in the space were taken from other artists and painters I like from that era (all of the magazine cutouts are from before 2004). Every piece of the wall has meaning and signifies where I was drawing influence from. The intention was to capture my style and taste and for that to soak in to the music. There were a lot of variations of the record that sat on the hard drive. At the time, I was listening to a lot of The Dandy Warhols, Savage Garden, [and] Gorillaz, and then it morphed into the sound it is today, largely influenced by all of the female power pop stars of late ’90s/early millennium (Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne). The record had a lot of different lives before it became what it is today.
LUNA: That is a complex thought — not just writing normal music. How would you define a concept album?
SELKŌW: I’d define a concept album as having a theme and then doing your best to make people feel like they are in that space too. For me, it was a progression, and the space was really split up. There was mental deterioration, anger, happiness, and sadness. It was about creating a visual aid to accompany the music to make the listener feel immersed in that space [by] including them in the storyline. There’s a common thread throughout the record, which is mainly love, loss, and addiction. You’re experiencing all of these emotions and finally you get to this space at the end, which is “Harley,” the lead single from the new EP. That song [is the one] we just put out, actually. This serves as the moment where I’ve kind of let go of everything, and I’m like, “Fuck this, I’m out” — and thats the last song on the record. The rest is so chaotic — I'm so back and forth with myself, with the people around me and with my addiction.
LUNA: How is your community around you and has it had an impact on your sound?
SELKŌW: Yeah, it has; I listen to a lot of my friend's music. Between Anna [Shoemaker] and Richie [Quake], Blonder, Morning Silk, Kevin Holliday — those are all my favorite bands, you know? When I am in a room with them their sound rubs off on me. The environment around me matters a lot too. When I was in Tennessee, all the songs I was writing were just pretty sad and not very uptempo, which was representative of this peaceful area we were in.
LUNA: That is my favorite type of music — sad and slow. Do you have any favorite songs on the record yet?
SELKŌW: Yeah, I think “Harley” is probably my favorite one. It feels the most representative of my sound and where I'm trying to go with it because all of the music on this new batch of songs is so far from what we were doing on the first EP.
LUNA: What's the next goal after the release?
SELKŌW: We would like to go on tour or play shows in the region. We are focused on establishing ourselves here for the most part. And writing more music.
LUNA: Lots to look forward to then. I feel like it has been a really big year for the music scene in New York — I’ve felt a lot of growth in the community and with life and shows being back. Do you have any favorite moments of the year so far?
SELKŌW: I think a highlight was Alex G over at Webster Hall. It was the first show we were excited about after quarantine.
LUNA: For sure. And my last question: What are you listening to right now?
SELKŌW: Right now, I've only been listening to Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette.
LUNA: No fucking way.
SELKŌW: That's it. It’s the only record I've been putting on every day.
LUNA: That's so awesome.
SELKŌW: You’ve got to watch the documentary, Jagged.
LUNA: I'll check it out. Thanks so much for talking with me.
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