Mile Wide Inch Deep

Born in a riverbed in Cincinnati, Spoils emerged as a Covid-19 era project between roommates and friends. Announcing their arrival in 2022 with Find Later, their first EP written by songwriter, guitarist, and violinist Nina Payiatis, the band has changed shape over the years while remaining true to their Midwestern roots. Channeling predecessors like that dog., Dear Norah, and The Spinanes, Spoils paints with a well-loved palette composed of the signs and sounds of Cincinnati, nestled somewhere between the South and the Midwest. The depth of their bond rises to the surface of Spoils’ compositions. Lyricism meditates on universal rites of passage: chance encounters, adolescent reconciliation, questions of loss and of love.

Mile Wide Inch Deep expands upon these subjects with a socratic ignorance: an acceptence of knowing that you know nothing. Payiatis’ writing speculates on ideas of motherhood, connections to the ecology, time and space, and the push-pull of intimate relationships. It’s an answer to life spent in the city Mark Twain apocryphally described as stuck 20 years in the past, and the countless hours spent imagining years into the future. Spoils is woven into the lush of the Little Miami river, the waning light of a winter moon, the quilted tapestry of Ohio.