After long waits, strange journeys, and far wanderings it’s finally here: Nap Eyes – Thought Rock Fish Scale will be released Friday February 5th! And to spare those last few days of anticipation and uncertainty and discomfort, we are happy to say “Peace! There is no need! Listen here my friends, and may you be soothed by the listening!”

We couldn’t be more excited. This record has been deep burrowed into our hearts and minds since Nigel first sent it our way so many months back. To our ears it’s a stone-cold classic. Ian Kehoe told me Lion In Chains was the best song to have yet been released by our humble label. I, more politic, avoid such statements as “best” and “all-time favourite” and “absolute” – though they beat strong in my veins and struggle against the teeth. These are wise songs, all.

Orders received through our mailorder shop are shipping now! And are special Thought Rock Fish Scale + Whine Of The Mystic package deal is available until Sunday February 7.

Nap Eyes – Thought Rock Fish Scale (YC-024) LP/CD/Digital.
Album stream courtesy of our partners at Paradise of Bachelors:

Tour Dates:
Mon. Mar. 7 – Allston, MA @ Great Scott
Tue. Mar. 8 – Hudson, NY @ The Half Moon
Wed. Mar. 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
Thu. Mar. 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
Fri. Mar. 11 – Washington, DC @ DC9
Sat. Mar. 12 – Durham, NC @ The Pinhook
Sun. Mar. 13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Wed. Mar. 16-Fri. Mar. 18 – Austin, TX @ SXSW
Sun. Mar. 20 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
Mon. Mar. 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Tue. Mar. 22 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
Thu. Mar. 24 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Mar. 25 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza
Sat. Mar. 26 – Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
Mon. Mar. 28 – Calgary, AB @ Palomino Smokehouse and Social Club
Tue. Mar. 29 – Edmonton, AB @ Brixx Bar & Grill
Wed. Mar. 30 – Saskatoon, SK @ Amigo’s Cantina
Fri. Apr. 1 – Winnipeg, MB @ The Good Will Social Club
Sat. Apr. 2 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
Sun. Apr. 3 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Mon. Apr. 4 – Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop
Tue. Apr. 5 – Lakewood, OH @ Mahall’s
Thu. Apr. 7 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
Fri. Apr. 8 – Montreal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo

Nap Eyes return February 5, 2016 with the long-awaited and completely excellent Thought Rock Fish Scale. These are literate songs, posing riddles about friendship, faith, mortality, and self-doubt, refining and elaborating on the sound of the beloved Whine Of The Mystic, offering an airier, more spacious second chapter.

Thought Rock Fish Scale was recorded in the crisp daylight of late May 2014, in the living room and screened porch of a seaside family home near Pictou, Nova Scotia. Like all Nap Eyes recordings to date, the album is framed by a set of severe self-imposed strictures: a mere four days to capture as many songs as possible completely live, with no overdubs, to a temperamental old TEAC four-track ¼” tape recorder. The result is a document pristine in its intentional imperfections.

Spin magazine described opening track Mixer as “an existentialist indie-pop daydream”. Please listen below.

The deluxe LP, pressed on 150g virgin vinyl, features a heavy-duty chipboard jacket, full-color inner sleeve with lyrics, and a download coupon; the CD is housed in a gatefold chipboard jacket. Thought Rock Fish Scale is available for pre-order in the mailorder shop now.

Read more about Thought Rock Fish Scale on the album page.

Originally released in a limited run of 200 LPs by Plastic Factory Records of Montreal in 2014, Nap Eyes’ Whine Of The Mystic found some enthusiastic support among those with their ears tuned to the stranger frequencies: Sean Micheals at Said The Gramophone named the epic album closer “No Fear Of Hellfire” the 9th best song of the 2014 (“They are a rock band just so faintly tripping. They are priests of Shaolin and the Holy See, with electric guitars in their hands.”); Weird Canada noted that “this saintly record radiates with the light of the community from which it was born” evoking the continued excellence of the band’s home town Halifax scene (including Monomyth with Nap Eyes’ own Josh Salter and Seamus Dalton). It was a record passed around between friends. It was a secret weapon.

On July 10, 2015, You’ve Changed Records will be re-releasing Whine Of The Mystic making this brilliant album available across Canada for the first time. Our partners in crime at the excellent US label Paradise Of Bachelors will be introducing it to the world. We are thrilled.

Nap Eyes songs are reckless and wise; they deal equally in science and spirit; they balance melody and noise as well as any in the great tradition of The Velvets, The Clean, The Verlaines, and The Modern Lovers. They are drunken and literate, rich in life, and deep in the old trap: you drive into knowledge and find oblivion, and toward oblivion knowledge.

Please listen to first track “Dark Creedence” below:

Nap Eyes – “Delirium and Persecution Paranoia,” live at Coach House Sound, Toronto.

Whine Of The Mystic is available now on LP/CD/Digital formats.
A new full-length Nap Eyes album will be released in early 2016 by You’ve Changed Records and Paradise of Bachelors.