Harmless Goes Deep Into the Lore of Springs Eternal

Harmless—the indie dream pop project of Mexican-born musician Nacho Cano—is back with his first full-length LP in eight years, Springs Eternal. Since releasing Harmless Fantasies in 2015, Cano has seen his 2012 track “Swing Lynn” explode online—racking up nearly half-a-billion streams and a Gold certification in the process. Now, Springs Eternal arrives as Cano’s best work to date. Co-produced by Yves Rothman (Blondshell, Amaarae) at Sunset Sound, Springs Eternal is 11 wall-to-wall hues of vibrant warmth. From the oddball treasure of “Aisle Five” to the stripped down, mythical tenderness of “Maybe Next Week,” this is a record with some real muscular dreaminess and sincere replay value.

Cano has dedicated the album to connect with his younger self “after feeling split due to a gruesome accident” with a drunk driver. “Since the incident, I’ve struggled to reconnect with myself and who I was before it,” he explains. “The trauma of my near-death experience made me feel distant from my identity, and contending with new disabilities and limitations made it all the more difficult to connect with my past. To bridge this gap and rediscover my younger self, I spent the last year making a record in the style of who I was prior to the trauma that changed my life.” Springs Eternal relishes its own intimacy, and Cano’s command of his own musicality has never sounded better. He sat down and explored the lore of all 11 tracks for us here at Paste, so tune in and learn how Springs Eternal is a dash of summery brilliance that documents marriage, trauma, familial relationships, the music industry and, above all, re-learning what it means to hold hope.

“Hate Me”

The album opener. I tried to replicate the Tim Hecker-inspired ambient drones that I used to make with my crappy guitar back in high school. I felt that if I were to make a record of a conversation with my younger self, I should start it with a tone that I feel only I could make. I also wanted the first conversation with my younger self to be about where we are at with music and our career as a whole. That despite being older and changed in many ways, we are still insecure about everything. Ultimately we prefer it when we are told we are “hated” because it confirms the way that we view ourselves. Also, just for goofs, the slowdown at the end references the new wave of slowed-down and sped-up songs in music. Cause, why not?

“As I Lay Chilling”

“As I Lay Chilling” is a pretty cut-and-dry follow-up to the themes of “Hate Me.” I was angry then and I’m angry now. I am trying to communicate to my younger self that these last couple of years we seem to fight the same barriers that we faced when we came to the US. That we, despite doing everything we can and have, still don’t feel good enough for this place. I talk about how much I hate that I feel like I have no community here and that I wish to be someone else just to have a sense of belonging. As time has gone by, we still feel at odds with our environment and ourselves. That eventually, like I’ve seen it happen to others like us, we are just gonna get chewed up and spit out.

“What U Want”

“What U Want” was inspired by the many label meetings I had after Swing Lynn’s viral success. In this dialogue that I am trying to have with my younger self, I use this song to communicate how we in music can’t escape our labels. That some labels actually couldn’t get past the Latin barrier. Getting told that we make “non-urban Latin” music and as a result we are harder to market. This song is making fun of those labels by making exactly the song they expected out of me.

“CYA”

“CYA” follows the sonic tones of my older angsty songs. Particularly this song called “Pretty Bones” that I made when I was younger. A song about our strained relationship with our biological father. “CYA” is pretty much the part 2 to that. I am essentially using this song to tell my younger self that these relationships did not improve and were more or less finished after being run over. In short, that experience thinned our social and family circles out for a reason.

“Aisle Five”

Goofiest song in the whole record. I just wanted to make a song about what it was like when I was single. I made that choppy indie sleaze song that I felt aptly communicates some of my mid-20s. It’s kind of about some people, kind of just about a feeling. It’s just fun. Dumb title too. Cause when things get messy, you know, we are gonna need a clean-up on Aisle Five? Knee slapper there.

“Rosie”

“Rosie” is named after a friend’s dog. I didn’t bring a gift to a birthday party and embarrassingly scrambled to come up with something. I knew my friend was a fan of my music so I asked her to name a song as a gift. It worked! But that’s not really what the song is about… “Rosie” is about my infatuation with courtship. Since I was young I have always been a lover of love. Big into rom-coms, big into hearing meet-cutes, and first dates. This song is the kind of thing I would want to hear in the many rom-coms that I have imagined over the years.

“MARU”

This interlude is more of a joke for me than anything else. On my first “record” or “mixtape,” I’m sure I made an instrumental called “Pier Cafe” about a girl we used to date and the place we used to on our dates. “Maru” is a continuation of that gesture, except it is about my wife. Maru is, I guess, now a coffee franchise. I’m going to take the opportunity to put this to print, I was the first Maru customer. I worked at a clothing store across the street when they were first building the place. I remember I rushed over to meet the owners and have my first brew there the day they passed their plumbing inspection. It’s a big part of my life… So much so that every weekend my wife and I go to Maru the long way so that we can talk to one another for as long as we can before starting the day.

“Couldn’t Be Me

Themes aside, this might have been the most personal song on the record. With “Couldn’t Be Me,” I set out to try and find a way to communicate to myself how we’ve ended up disabled and the feelings that stem from that. Our comparisons now go beyond just our cultural background but also our physical limitations. For example, touring has always been a dream of mine. Whereas back in the day the thought would get me nervously excited now I just get nervously anxious. I spend more time trying to figure out my pain threshold than I do thinking about how fun this could all be. Whenever I come back home from the road, I spend days in bed cause my legs hurt so bad. There’s emotional pain coupled with my physical pain because the reason we take a cane up to the stage stems from something horrific. On top of that, I’ve seen my career flourish on TikTok but I’ve had a hard time translating that into something tangible because the song blew up at a time when I wasn’t aware of my body’s limits. Things take longer because I have to be more careful than my peers. It’s hard not to look at your friends in the same career you’re in and not feel jealous because they can follow the momentum this industry demands. Sometimes, I wish I was them.

“Maybe Next Week”

Funny-sad story. Being run over led to a lot of nerve damage to the lower half of my body primarily in my pelvic area and my left leg. Sometimes, when I gotta go to the bathroom, it’s a tortuous experience. One particular day, I was struggling to write a song about trying to tell myself about the courtship of my wife and me. How difficult it was the cause of my distance because I was a victim in a criminal trial all while being in a different state. She never gave up on me though because of her patience. This song is about the patience she had for me. I had the music, I just couldn’t come up with the lyrics. I was recording when I had to go to the bathroom. It was cold which already made my nerves super sensitive and without getting too explicit, I just started crying on the toilet. That’s when I came up with the chorus and most of the second verse. True story.

“It’s Only You”

Oh god, another wife song. Get ready cause basically, the last three tracks are about my wife in some capacity and what I would want to tell my younger self about her. My wife and I were friends for many years before we got together. After being run over separated me from myself, I felt very empty, but spending time with my then-friend Arianna made me feel like I was my old self and my new self. It’s a truly unique feeling that I want to cherish for the rest of my life. This is a song retelling the moment I asked her to move to Los Angeles and be more than just friends. “So what do you want to do? Do you wanna be with me?” Corny, yes. I am corny.

“Ferrari”

A phonetic joke, technically called “For Ari,” my wife’s name. I wanted to close out the record by thanking the person who helped bridge the gap between who I was and who I am. My wife is really into those ’60’s, ’70’s Americana-esque songs which I have a hard time with. I always poke fun at her for liking them and yet here I am trying to channel George Harrison for her. In the absolute corniest of lyrics too. But she and I love corniness. I wanted to pick a subject to end the conversation with myself, I wanted it to be about something that makes us happy. I just wanted to signify to my younger self in some way that things are alright more or less because we have good company. The song finishes out with an ambient loop much like how the record begins. It’s that Tim Hecker-esque sonic tone that only I know. I’ve always loved records that sonically end how they start… I thought that for the theme I chose, it would be nice to make it a little loop.

Harmless’ Springs Eternal is out now.