Look Park

Look Park originated as the brainchild of Chris Collingwood, the frontman and co-writer behind the power pop outfit Fountains of Wayne, marking his initial venture independent of that ensemble. Although technically a one-man undertaking, the project steered away from confessional acoustic styles or lo-fi approaches, favoring instead a psych-pop aesthetic that Collingwood himself described as “band music.”

The name derives from a green space near his home in Northampton, Massachusetts. The idea coalesced after Fountains of Wayne completed a global trek behind their 2011 release Sky Full of Holes. Working alone, Collingwood composed new material and consciously discarded any pieces that echoed his prior band’s sound. Early sketches centered on acoustic guitar, piano, and sparse percussion. He next contacted producer Mitchell Froom, whose résumé includes Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, and Bonnie Raitt. The pair discovered they had overlapped at the same Pennsylvania boarding school and bonded over mutual enthusiasms, among them an affinity for the Moody Blues. Together they crafted a psychedelic sonic framework built around blurred keyboards and Mellotron textures. In 2015 Collingwood assembled bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Michael Urbano—both ex-members of Cracker—at Froom’s Santa Monica, California residence to lay down the tracks. The self-titled Look Park debut appeared on Yep Roc during summer 2016.