Cotton Candy Sky: Wylie Something’s New LP, ‘Nap,’ a Dreamy, Welcome Escape

'Nap' album cover.

There’s always something comforting about a Wylie Something record.

Dreamlike and sonically gallivanting, oftentimes to a daring extent, there is an eternal sense of wonderment and escape embedded within the music. And let’s be honest: who doesn’t need an escape right about now?

Thankfully, as we navigate this dark and twisted Trumpian nightmare, escape is at hand, as a new Wylie Something record drops today. And what better way to escape than hiding underneath the covers, spinning this record and taking a big ol’ ‘Nap,’ which just so happens to be the title of Wylie Something’s new LP.

For the uninitiated, Wylie Something is the alter-ego of the prolific Buffalo indie artist Jacob Smolinski, who is celebrating the release of his new record with the added bonus of a limited cassette run available HERE.

Smolinski said he spent “a good chunk of this winter” in his home writing and recording ‘Nap,’ which is his sixth full-length release and a follow-up to his 2024 LP, ‘Picnic.’

“This is an incredibly special album to me,” Smolinski said. “After the reception of ‘Up Through the Rust,’ my 2025 EP, it really got me thinking about how much fun it was to play the friggin' drums. Compounded with scoring a 12-string knockoff Rickenbacker from Allentown Music — bless their hearts — this pushed me into a completely new sonic direction. Finally, stumbling across recordings of my electric piano compositions in my sunroom from 2021, I realized I could blend some mediums together. Fast-forward, I was able to record, mix, and master from the comfort of my home studio and had an absolute blast.” 

If we were to crawl inside Smolinski’s brain, we're convinced we'd enter a world similar to one of those far-out Saturday morning Sid and Marty Krofft programs like H.R. Pufnstuf or Lidsville. Not only does Smolinski march to his own drummer, he is the drummer and his world is fantastically cosmic.

Wylie Something songs are endlessly interesting. Replete with lofty and traipsing melodies, they are lyrically rich and often contemplate life’s nuanced emotions and experiences through a voice that is simultaneously booming yet dulcet.

‘It’s tucked away in farm fields

Signals glow amongst harvest yields

There's turbines whirring beyond hills

Humming along to ancient wheels

Turning underground

Never to be heard yet felt around’

—French Braid (from the album, ‘Nap’)

Bouncy and chock full of lo-fi quirkiness, the tracks on ‘Nap’ take listeners on a magic carpet ride across a fuzzed-out psychedelic landscape. There’s an otherworldliness here, and the magic is in Smolinski’s ability to successfully blend a current indie sound with a trippy retro vibe, dotted by cool interludes throughout that connect and enhance the listening experience.

In the end, ‘Nap’ is triumphant, reminding us that it’s OK to withdraw for our own peace of mind, and teaching us that, sometimes, we can pull through and overcome simply by slipping into the void.

"‘Nap’ is an escape,” Smolinski said. “So why not escape to a chill place? Falling asleep to the hum of the TV, tuning in and out. An open window with the breeze playin' across your face.”

As he sings on the album’s title track:

‘Why can't days go on forever

We were captured there in amber

Eternally napping there in a sunspot

… It's been a lot …

Just gonna rest my eyes a spell

A nap

And the light will fill the room.’

And with that, we’ll just rest our eyes a bit and spin a little Wylie Something.