INTERVIEW W/ two blinks, i love you: "I’ve tended to write further away from myself"

Liverpool songwriter Liam Brown aka two blinks, i love you has returned with the deeply enriching 'ep 2' a collection of tracks which act as an aesthetic ode to NYC, pulling at the early 2000s Alt-Rock and Folk output of the city, reflecting on love and loss in a way that’s more direct than Liam first anticipated.

The EP creates a heartwarming, fuzzy sentimentality, exploring themes of romance, home and the semantic connections we attach to geographical locations from our past. Some of the synth textures that we came to expect from Liam in his previous project pizzagirl return on this EP, creating hypnotic backdrops while other tracks remain more stripped back and tender.

We caught up to chat about New York and the new release...

Photo Credit: Ross Carrigan

Q. Can you explain where your affinity for New York City originated from?

A. “I think New York, for me, has been home to a lot of the bands, films and art I've consumed over the years and beyond. When I was a teenager, I peripherally had all the ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’ era bands floating around my iTunes, some I’d taken a deeper dive on, and others just bits and pieces. When I started two blinks a year or so ago, I found that these bands (sonically and visually speaking) found a way back around to how I wanted my own band to look and sound too”.

Q. What was your first reaction when you stepped foot in NYC for the first time?

A. “It was quite intense, as many cities are, but I felt like because it’s such a well documented area of the world, there’s a strange sense of familiarity with being there. This is by no means saying that I felt at home there or wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack on the subway most times, but I felt like a place that I’d seen spoke about in some of my favourite songs and had been the setting for some of my favourite films, had came to life in a very real way”.

Q. You have previously written a track named Carnegie Hall and this EP is an ode to NYC. Do you often find environments and locations a source of inspiration?

A. “I do like writing about things and places that are not in my immediate world sometimes yeah, I think the times I’ve felt a bit claustrophobic in my life, I’ve tended to write further away from myself, which probably explains Carnegie hall! I’m not necessarily inspired by the actual environments as they are in the real world, more the feeling they can evoke being there in different times and feelings in your life, if that makes sense?”.