The second studio album from Harmless is a new breakthrough in Nacho Cano’s musical horizons. By Them By You By Me blends the appealing indie-pop that Cano has established himself with for a decade-plus with gauzy shoegaze textures and the winsome full-band sound of the Slumberland and Captured Tracks catalogs. These ten songs find their creator ruminating on the intersection between creativity and careerism—the inexorable struggle that myriad artists face while uncovering their true selves within their work—and Cano emerges reborn with a new sense of purpose and sonic vitality.

By Them By You By Me is the latest release in an estimable body of work that Cano has built for himself under the Harmless name, dating back to the project’s 2012 debut, I’m Sure, under the initial alias Twin Cabins. It was from that first mixtape that Cano achieved a viral hit in the form of “Swing Lynn,” which dominated TikTok and ended up tallying more than 328 million plays on Spotify alone. Rather than bask in his sudden success, though, Cano felt adrift and unsure in the sudden wake of virality.

“After that record, my understanding of the music industry was just, ‘How do we make something go viral?’” he explains, stating that the pressure of success, as well as the increasing fear that it would affect his creative spirit, became an existential concern that hung over Harmless as a whole. “I’m an immigrant from another country, so I always put pressure on myself to succeed. That was, creatively, the wrong move for me—chasing virality instead of like doing my own thing, which is what brought me virality in the first place.”

Fittingly, By Them By You By Me finds Cano feeling freer than ever before in expressing his creative voice—a true document of letting go and leaving it all on the field. “Given where the world’s at, I was feeling like, ‘What if this is the last record I’ll ever make?” he recalls, a contemplative stretch that led him to detach from social media and write the bulk of By Them By You By Me in quick order.  “It came really quickly. I hate studios, so I write and record everything I can in my house.” 

The resulting album, in Cano’s words, is “a record about rejection. It’s a breakup album, but about breaking up with your job. There’s this idea that labor is what validates you. My dream came true—so why am I not happy? Those are feelings that are very complimentary to heartbreak. So I wanted to write about my passion and falling out with it.” A largely self-produced affair, By Them By You By Me was assembled to completion in Mexico City alongside studio wizards Santiago, Patricio Mijares (Panda Bear, Sam Evian, and Francisco Sánchez de la Vega (Hawaiian Gremlins, O Tortuga),  accompanying him: “I gave myself and friends 10 days to do it, and at the end we were like, ‘Alright, I think this is it!” 

The locale and collaborators also reflected a homecoming of sorts when it comes to Cano’s Mexican roots: “I wanted to involve that part of my life into my music—which I’ve often rejected, because in the music industry it’s very easy for people to label you and have it stick to you forever,” he explains. “But it was just so comfortable to speak in my native tongue.” 

The creative process that birthed By Them By You By Me was also inspired by legendary composer and producer Brian Eno’s love of imperfections in sound. “I certainly miss that—when the snare sounds fucked up, or the hi-hat’s a little off,” Cano says while ruminating on the need to endlessly tweak in the digital age. “The neurotic part of me that has Ableton on their computer wants to fix it, but when I’m in the studio with my friends, I’m like, ‘This makes it feel like the band is in the room—let’s just leave it.’ That only happens when you don’t have time to think about it. I was also able to free myself of this internalized idea that I’d get in trouble if I said I don’t like how it’s sounding, even though I’m in charge.” 

With a sticky-sweet guitar hook buried in an indelible layer of fuzz, first single “future music” is directly inspired by late singer-songwriter David Berman’s work as Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, taking its name from his favorite music store in Los Angeles and inspired by a guitar that he purchased there. “I like to like drop by and see if anything on the wall might like get a song out of me,” Cano recalls, “and I came up with the chord progression on this Mustang I took off the wall, so I bought it that day and went home, and named the session file ‘future music.’”

Meanwhile, the smooth and lush guitar lines of “the bluff” accompany lyrical musings on the true meaning of success and the importance of prioritizing stability over the thrill of the chase. “The song sprouted around a conversation I had with another musician friend who’s very successful,” he explains. “They told me about how they didn’t get all the things that they wanted out of their career even though they just had one of the biggest years of their career. It just didn’t go the way that they wanted it to. I was like, ‘When’s it gonna be enough?’—and I realized that was asking myself that question. Sometimes you can look too much at the sky without building a floor, and if you’re always climbing upward, eventually you’re gonna fall and there’s gonna be no floor to catch you.”

Then there’s the gorgeously languid “noslomo” partially inspired by seminal indie rock greats Acetone as well as the Smashing Pumpkins’ alt-rock grandeur. Cano describes it as a forlorn love song in the vein of Radiohead’s “House of Cards,” with a twist when it comes to the focal point of his affection: “I’m singing it to my career,” he says, while addressing the big questions and tough conversations that drive at the heat of By Them By You By Me. “At the time I was writing it, I felt like I wanted my career more than it wanted me. Even though I absolutely hate a lot of components of being a creative person for a living, I still want to do it, is actual optimism.” And it’s such moments of self-discovery that brought Cano to the point that this record represents, resulting in an undeniably bright new chapter for his creative path as a whole.

“brimming indie rock // colorful bedroom pop” Hailing from their hometown of Boise, ID, these flowering kids began to make an impact on the local music scene fresh out of highschool. With their debut EP “Flamingo” ringing through locker laden hallways and gaining serious traction on TikTok and Soundcloud, VEMM realized they have something special. Their lead-single and provincial claim to fame “Speak Up” was picked up by KEXP and thrown into their local rotation as most of the members were still underage. Currently in the studio recording their first album together, VEMM is coasting into a new, fresh period with a positive outlook on their future together. They look forward to embarking on their first tours and are looking into signing with DIY labels around the PNW. <3