Naomi Alligator Double Knot

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About

Naomi Alligator is fed up. She’s sick of trying to make relationships work that have already run their course, and tired of sitting in a wintry apartment waiting for her life to kick into gear. On her forthcoming album Double Knot via Carpark Records, the modern folk singer/songwriter from Virginia attempts to unwind her life from all that is holding her back. In a way, it’s a coming-of-age record about shedding what no longer serves you and, ultimately, finding something like deliverance.

On the opening track, “Seasick,” Naomi Alligator is already in the midst of a sort of awakening. Right off the bat, she sings, “I don’t know what’s happened to me / It’s like I turned 16 / It’s like I grew to be 6-feet tall.” This is the announcement of a wide-eyed artist coming out of hibernation and into their own. Still, Naomi’s vocals ache with guilt and longing, belying the track’s playful catchiness. Longing for what? Maybe attention from a crush, but mostly a sunnier place to call home.

Naomi Alligator began writing Double Knot while living in Philadelphia during the height of the pandemic and the deterioration of a longterm romance. “I scream: How’d the hell I end up here?

/ I’m 1-inch tall, it’s crystal clear,” she chants on “Neighborhood Freak,” returning to height and size as an emotional barometer. When asked though, Naomi rejects the notion that Double Knot is a breakup album, or autobiographical at all. Moreso, she says, it’s a personal reckoning in which, “the minute before you make a big decision, you tally up the reasons why you don’t want to do what you’re doing anymore.”

That desire to turn the page expands to the production of the album as well. Naomi Alligator generally houses her narratives in beds of minimal, home-tracked instrumentation—influenced by the stripped-down poeticism of Joan Baez and Liz Phair’s Girly-Sound tapes. Double Knot finds Naomi continuing to hone the winning combination of guitar and banjo she established on 2021’s Concession Stand Girl EP. For Double Knot though, Naomi wanted a fuller, more dynamic sound: more instruments, more harmonies, more layering, more, more, more. Inspired by the impressionistic melodies of Animal Collective and MGMT, Naomi peppers in computer-generated synths throughout the album, most notably on the song “Burn Out.” These electronic flourishes augment the more grounding string instruments, arriving somewhere more ethereal than Naomi’s earlier work while still maintaining her warm songwriting.

If anything, Double Knot is a reminder that you can always pack up your bags, try something new, and change your life. As for Naomi Alligator herself? She moved west, to California.

Artist Bio

“I think my music provides space for me to say the things I can’t always say in real life.” says Virginia native songwriter and multi-media artist Corrinne James. While studying New Media and Cinematography at the University of Virginia, James created a secret Bandcamp under the alias Naomi Alligator, and began uploading her intimate home recordings online. Although her primary creative practice has been experimental animation—producing several shorts and music videos for artists like Slow Pulp and Emily Yacina—James found a way to broaden her storytelling through music. “I grew up playing piano, but I was actually learning how to play guitar on the first few Naomi Alligator songs.” James admits. “At the end of high school my friend Ruby sent me a Google Drive zip of all the Girly Sounds recordings and told me ‘You need to listen to this!’” Inspired by the sparse and confessional qualities of Liz Phair’s early portastudio recordings, James decided to create her own musical journal to share and process personal anecdotes. “I was nervous to show it to other people because I was just scared about what they might think, but eventually I started sharing it with friends in college and they would share it with more people.”

This fall, five years since her first upload and over a dozen releases later, James will share her new four-track EP, Concession Stand Girl, while making her debut on Carpark. Self-recorded at home, Concession Stand Girl features Corrinne James playing guitar, synth, and banjo. “That banjo was actually a gift from my old professor and mentor, Lydia Moyer.” James recalls. Her modern folk production and poetic songwriting links the sounds of artists like Joan Baez and Steeleye Span to a 21st century context. James wrestles with guilt, purpose, and jealousy through vivid narratives in the songs on her new EP, as well as much of her self-released music and films. James says “I kind of feel like a kid when I’m writing music—it’s just about sharing whatever you’re feeling and getting that out, you know?” Following the release of Concession Stand Girl, James hopes to expand the sound of Naomi Alligator, experimenting with new recording techniques and layered instrumentation, while maintaining her warm songwriting.