Never Let It End: An Extended Play With M0nogamy
On M0nogamy’s debut EP “Gray Area,” their songs display vulnerability and confession, but remain firm and intentional under the emotional weight. The smoky, Brooklyn-based trio, comprised of indie musicians Storey Littleton (22), Livia Reiner (27), and Matthew Danger Lippman (28), is at once self-aware and stylized, epitomized by the release of their four-song EP on Valentine’s Day.
“Gray Area” wrestles with judgment across 16 minutes of suggestive verses, most of which Reiner and Littleton said they wouldn’t have written if not alongside each other, making this project wholly separate from either of their solo work. On “Big Rockstar” Littleton sings, “It’s a contradiction, somehow you still miss him/ But that’s not what they want to hear you say,” before Reiner joins in for the sticky chorus that is the pop-high of the EP. Perhaps “What a Decision” displays the struggle for confidence most clearly on the release, as Reiner sings, “It hasn’t been healing/ It only hurts/ When I’m caught off guard in the backyard/ And she hits a nerve.”
The EP is followed by the single “(Never) Let It End,” a song that could act as a sort of response to Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” Both chug along in a tale of clandestine desire, but where Springsteen seduces daddy’s little girl, Littleton explorates, “Did I bring your ship in/ I wasn’t a siren/ I was a girl then.” It has a riff you get trapped in, a subtle tug that shows the group’s ability for craftsmanship. “Could’ve stayed in the sand/ But I wanted to go swimming,” Littleton sings, and you know she cannot be stopped, for better or for worse.
Littleton and Reiner met at a Kate McGarrigle tribute concert in a Los Angeles backyard, soon after Littleton moved there at 18 from Woodstock (Reiner is from LA, while Lippman comes from Buffalo). They shared a mutual friend who was playing in the show and introduced them, assuming they were the only two attendees under the age of 50. They met for Vietnamese food and immediately started playing together, officially starting M0nogamy three years later in April of 2023 after attending a Lucinda Williams Q&A.
On Valentine’s Day last year, Reiner started writing “Makeup on Your Eyes” and imagined Littleton’s piano on the track. “Gray Area” has been released exactly a year later, an EP title poking fun at the black-and-white lounge aesthetic the three have conjured, as well as the moments of messy resolutions and taboo relationships that litter the release.
I talked to Littleton and Reiner about the origins and recording of this project, age gap relationships, and Tiger Balm in a conversation condensed and edited for clarity.
Can you each give a brief rundown of your personal history playing music?
Livia: I grew up playing classical music, playing violin when I was little. A big similarity between me and Storey is that both our dads were in punk bands when they were younger. Her dad has obviously continued on, but my dad just likes to play music, so I grew up in a house where when I was 8 years old, my dad was like, “Okay Livia, here is the Sex Pistols.” I feel lucky that I had a classical music education, but also it was just a big part of my life that what you do for fun is play music with other people in a casual way. When I was 17, I started writing songs and have been writing my own songs since then, and have recorded with a couple different people. A couple years ago I met Storey and we started playing together casually, and then playing shows together. There was this kind of natural progression to this batch of songs.
S: I started playing music when I was really little because both my parents (Daniel Littleton, Elizabeth Mitchell) are musicians. I would go on tour with them for their own band (Ida), but they also did children’s music, so I did a lot of folk music as a child. I would say the main things were playing the harmonica, recorder, and singing. By the time I was around 8 my dad started teaching me guitar and I started learning, like, Beatles songs. I started writing songs when I was 17. I got really into songwriting and I met Livia a year later when I was 18. Then we played a lot of shows together, went on tour together, and started the band.
Why the name M0nogamy?
L: The on-the-record version is that we came up with it in the spring and thought it was funny. I think we also just liked that it’s a little bit of a buzzword right now, and people have strong opinions about it in many different directions. As a band name it has no ideology or agenda, but it’s evocative and a little provocative.
Matthew isn’t here and cannot speak, so can one of you talk about his role in the band?
L: He plays guitar and the three of us produced the EP I would say. That’s another synchronicity: I met Matthew in a very funny way, which was just at a bus stop. We started talking about movies and music and stuff, and then he came to a show that Storey and I were doing and it turns out that…
S: Matthew and my uncle have been good friends for years, which is hilarious.
L: How it all happened is that we had come up with the band idea and started writing songs back in May, and then there was a little bit of a hiatus until August 1. We had a show upstate at Tubby’s and we were both playing solo sets and Matthew happened to be upstate and day-of ended up playing guitar on my set, and it was just really fun and went really well. Then we ended up singing backup for him a couple of weeks later, and at that point, August, September, October, we lived and breathed the band. It was just a natural thing to be like, “Hey, do you want to play guitar at this show we’re doing?” It went really well, and then it was like, “Oh, do you want to be on the recordings?” And then from there he became production support, as well. And he sings a bit, too.
What about the other musicians you recorded with?
L: I think when we first had the idea for the band, and the first time we sang “Makeup on Your Eyes” together my sister [Rose Reiner] was there. She is a band member, she just lives in LA now so she’s not in the picture or anything, but she is part of it. So it was really important to have her harmonies on the EP, and so she ended up recording those in LA with our friend Isaac Pross.
S: And then the other LA person is Leo.
L: Yeah, and then our friend Leo [Major], who’s a good friend of my sister’s and who we grew up across the street from, is an amazing saxophone player. The saxophone on “What a Decision” he recorded on a very rushed timeline. His playing is gorgeous, and it helped with the kind of loungey vibe we were going for.
S: We worked with Adam Minkoff on bass and Charley Drayton on drums and percussion. I’ve known Adam for a while; he’s an amazing musician who plays, like, every instrument. Charley… it was crazy to get to work with him. He was there for, I think, a half day. It was before we added the bass and we had very limited time and it was just incredible. When he started playing on “What a Decision” it was just… I don’t know how to describe the experience, but it was very exciting and very satisfying.
L: He’s played with so many people, but I feel like the one credit that made us very excited was that he played on and co-produced the Fiona Apple record “The Idler Wheel...”
S: I had never worked with Charley before, but we had played in the same shows before, so I knew him from Woodstock musicians, and Adam I’ve just known for a long time, I’ve played with him before, too.
What was the recording process like?
S: We recorded in Woodstock at my parent’s house. I don’t remember how many weekends there were for recording as opposed to mixing, like two or three right?
L: I think it was three. One time we did Storey’s keyboard, our acoustic guitars, and all of our vocals. That was probably three days. And then we did two days with Matthew where he added all the guitar and feedback, and that was a huge thing. I think the feedback is also a big part of why we consider him a real band member. I felt like we had all of the songs, but with that it was like, “Oh my god we have a sound.” We had another session with Charley and Adam in one day. And then we had mixing after that.
Do you feel like there were influences for this specific project that differ from other writing that you do?
S: Tom Waits was a very big influence at the beginning for us.
L: Fiona Apple.
S: We saw Justin Vivian Bond do a show at Joe’s Pub and they did a song called “Somebody Hurt You,” which is by this band called A Girl Called Eddy. I feel like that performance was a big inspiration.
I think it’s funny that the band is called M0nogamy because this EP is like, maybe not anti-monogamy, but anti-love songs. It seems like these songs are largely about trying and failing to avoid going back to someone or something. Does this resonate and are there other themes that you found in your writing?
L: Yeah, I think in terms of going back to something, “(Never) Let it End” and “What a Decision” are that. Another theme that resonates across the whole arc is conversation, and like, how to talk to someone, how to talk about someone, how other people talk about people. I feel like, for me, the songs we co-wrote just came so naturally from conversations that were pretty intense that I hadn’t really had with other people.
S: I agree. I had just finished working on my solo album, which was very much written from the perspective of being right in something at the moment and writing directly about it and about a person and myself and what I was experiencing. This was really different, and what Livia said about conversations is true for me, too. It’s less about just looking at the thing itself and more about the conversations that come with it.
A lot of the material on this record deals with very solitary themes, so what was it like writing and performing in a duo where these isolating feelings become ones that you deal with alongside someone else?
S: Literally crazy.
L: No, literally.
S: Like Livia said, some of the conversations that inspired these songs were things I just don’t really talk about with people ever. I’ve also just never had a co-writing experience with someone where we just really got into everything.
L: At times it was eerie. Like “What A Decision” really freaked me out for a while. I definitely would not have written my part of that song if it hadn't been something we were writing together. It was only because of [us] talking and remembering things.
Do you think it was also made more possible because you weren’t the sole face behind whatever you were singing?
S: 100% for me, yeah.
Storey, I am curious, as the youngest in the band by a decent amount, how did it feel writing these songs about desire and experience while being at a different stage in your life? Did you guys find yourself seeing eye to eye despite this?
S: [Both laugh] I think that a central theme to the love stories within the M0nogamy songs is “difference in age.” So, I feel like my bandmates’ age difference from me only made the understanding of the subject matter stronger.
L: I think that is especially interesting. For me, my sister and Storey are the same age, literally a couple of weeks apart, so I feel an ease that is almost sisterly.
What are some of your current obsessions?
L: As Storey reaches for her Diet Coke with her Tiger Balm right next to her.
S: Diet Coke and Tiger Balm. We both love Tiger Balm.
L: Rachel Aviv’s book “Strangers to Ourselves” -- I’m obsessed with her and her writing. She writes about very complicated situations entirely as they are, and any agenda or ideology is not put on top of it. I really admire how she can write about something so complex just from the actuality of it.
L: I mean we love the new Waxahatchee song…
S: I know I know. “Right Back to It.”
L: And Korean sweet potato noodles.
S: I’m really into the guitar solo at the end of the live version of “Rudolph” on the MJ Lenderman album. I’m back into Valentina hot sauce, it had been a while and now that’s huge again. I mean, I am obsessed with the idea of Florida. I’m just saying I want to go there, that's all.
L: Muji pens.
M0nogamy has two upcoming EP release shows: Tubby’s in Kingston on 2/17 and Sundown Bar in Queens on 2/25.