North Carolina’s 2:00 AM Wake Up Call plays with y2k themes while forswearing the nostalgia that comes with on their single “No Nostalgia,” available on streaming everywhere tomorrow. 2:00 AM Wake Up Call (Micah Leith) is re-releasing their 2021 album Mall Fantasy, and this meditation on mall emo ended up being a last-minute addition to the album.
“No Nostalgia came together really late in the process of writing the album, after I started recording, actually. I used to have another song there — ‘Pictures on the Wall’ — but it had a kind of mid-tempo classic rock vibe that didn’t fit the theme of the album. So, as I often do, I wrote up a replacement in the studio.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Leith was able to take this moment to write a song that encapsulated the album’s themes.
“I wanted it to be kind of a mission statement, because people are always so nostalgic about the y2k era and mall emo and all this stuff, and I wanted this song to kind of communicate that, while the albums take some themes from that time, they aren’t a nostalgia trip. We don’t live in the past, we’re still living, and we need to look forward if we’re going to get anywhere in life.”
Leith liked the song well enough, but didn’t realize it would become a linchpin of Mall Fantasy until getting input from Sylvie Jungheim, who mixed the album.
The music video, which Leith made for the new release, has tongue-in-cheek nods to childhood in the late ’90s and early 2000s, with an old TV/DVD player framed by K’Nex toys and an I Spy book.
“I put together the video at my parents house, combining rotoscoped animation with objects from my childhood and some old technology from Goodwill. I think it came out really neat.”
“No Nostalgia” will be available on all streaming platforms tomorrow, 1/12.
2:00 AM Wake Up Call — Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram