To paraphrase Yogi Berra, now that the North Carolina pop craftsmen in the Kingsbury Manx have arrived at their proverbial career fork in the road, they’re going to have to take it. Regardless of which path is chosen, the ride ahead appears to be an interesting one. Whereas the band’s early work was pastoral and frequently compared to the more muted moments in Pink Floyd’s mid-‘70s catalog, these new records find Manx leader Bill Taylor gently pushing the group toward the post-rock cut-and-paste of Tortoise and Gastr Del Sol. Several of the songs are more a collection of “movements” (“Pelz Komet” and “Growler In The Rumbleseat," from the new Aztec Discipline album) than straight-up pop compositions. It’s also clear the country/psych sparkle of Beachwood Sparks and Buffalo Springfield has rubbed off on the band. (“Time Well Spent,” from the recent Afternoon Owls EP, could just as easily be an outtake from the Dead’s American Beauty.) The Manx occasionally gets its Sonic Youth on—the layered guitar whoosh of Aztec Discipline’s “De-Da Dementia” is more CBGB than Cat’s Cradle—but overall, these two releases mark the sound of a band growing ever more confident of its skills.

MAGNET caught up with Taylor while he rested on his couch watching The Matrix, having safely returned from tour.

Compared to the “melancholic” tag with which your previous records have often been branded, I found the new songs surprisingly upbeat.
We’ll get in the studio and realize that it needs to be a step faster or a step slower, and these just felt better the more upbeat they were. Plus, now we have Clarque Blomquist playing drums as well as (original drummer) Ryan Richardson, and they have two completely different styles. Clarque comes from more of a rock background—he played in death-metal bands—whereas Ryan is more of a jazz drummer.

What about the air of mystery around the band? There has been very little information available to fans, and your first records didn’t even have your names on them. Is this intentional?
At the beginning, it escaped our attention. But the only other information we could have put in there would have been who plays exactly what and then the lyrics. We’re every bit the Southern band as people think about that term, though—not really lazy, but we’re laid back. I think the pace of the songs speaks to that. We’re not in a hurry. We’re just kind of floatin’ by.

I apologize for asking this, but where did the name come from?
It was a last-ditch effort at making a decision that none of us wanted to make. On the first record, on the side of the master tape, it still says “Bill, Ryan and Kenneth.” We’d talked about calling ourselves the Manx, just because we liked the way it sounded, but we were all like, “Oh, it’s too plain. We need something more descriptive.” We had a Kingsbury piano in our basement, and somebody looked over at it and said, “What about the Kingsbury Manx?” And we all looked at each other and said, “We’re not going to get anything better than that. Let’s run with it.” [Overcoat, www.thekingsburymanx.com]