# How to Leave Town

How to Leave Town is the second EP by American indie rock musician Will Toledo, released under the alias Car Seat Headrest. It was self-published on Bandcamp on October 31, 2014. The EP would act as the final solo release from the project, as well as the last project before Toledo would sign to Matador Records.

## Background

Car Seat Headrest originally started as a solo project by Toledo shortly after he had graduated from high school. Throughout 2010 to 2014, Toledo would release the majority of his albums through Bandcamp, including four numbered albums, Twin Fantasy and Monomania among others.
Following the release and mixed reception of his eighth album, Nervous Young Man, Toledo would begin planning out what would become his follow-up album, Teens of Denial, with the intention of writing music that was more straightforward and easier to perform live. Many of the tracks from How to Leave Town would originate from the writing process of Denial. In an interview with Uproxx, Toledo stated that he considered the EP to be a compilation of B-sides and outtakes conceptually, though not literally.
The formation of the project as an EP was inspired by Sufjan Steven's 2010 hour-long EP, All Delighted People.

## Composition

How to Leave Town has been described as indie rock, synth-pop, and lo-fi, with critics noting the EP's less directly personal lyricism, as well as the project's borrowed influences from pop music. Opener "The Ending of Dramamine" is the longest song on the EP at 14 minutes, with the track making heavy use of synthesizers and unsteady guitars. Toledo would note that he had drawn inspiration from Frank Sinatra when writing the chord progression for the song, as well the Modest Mouse song "Dramamine", from which the song would draw its name. In a track review for Pitchfork, Ian Cohen would describe the EP's second track, "Beast Monster Thing (Love isn't Love Enough)" as "giving listeners a direct line to [Toledo's] inner monologue", comparing the song's harsh lo-fi intro to Sparklehorse, and the works of artists from Saddle Creek Records and Elephant 6.
The third track, "Kimochi Warui (When? When? When? When? When? When? When?)" would derive its title from the 1997 anime film, The End of Evangelion. Writing for Paste, Casey Epstein-Gross would describe the song as "atmospheric", "devastating", and "hopeless", noting that it "[evokes] the sensation of standing alone in a desert, on a field, inside a planetarium, looking up at the sheer magnitude of everything around you and feeling just so very, very small." "You're in Love with Me" is a more upbeat track, with Emily English of Campus Times describing its guitar and drum parts as the most reminiscent of Teens of Denial. The last track on the EP, "Hey, Space Cadet (Beast Monster Thing in Space)" originated directly as a scrapped demo from Teens of Denial, and features a returning refrain from prior single "Beast Monster Thing."

## Legacy

How to Leave Town would serve as the final project that Toledo would self-release as Car Seat Headrest. After signing to Matador Records in 2015, Car Seat Headrest would expand into a full band, with Toledo being joined by members Andrew Katz, Ethan Ives and Seth Dalby. Teens of Style, an album mostly made up of re-recorded tracks Toledo self-produced, would release in 2015, with Teens of Denial following up in 2016.

## Track listing

All tracks are written by Will Toledo

## Personnel

Credits adapted from How to Leave Town on Bandcamp.
* Will Toledo – composer
* Andrew Snook – artwork