A bunch of new video singles have been dropping left and right. These are five more we think you’ll dig:
Parquet Courts – New York, New York
Low – Duluth, Minnesota
Dean Wareham – Los Angeles, California
Sand & Stones – Stockholm, Sweden
Pip Blom – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Last week Parquet Courts announced a new album, Sympathy for Life, and shared its first video single, “Walking at a Downtown Pace.” The frantic video features New York City street life and was directed by photographer Daniel Arnold.
Sympathy for Life is due to drop on October 22 via Rough Trade. It is the followup to the band’s well-received 2018 album Wide Awake!.
This week indie veterans Low dropped a third single, “More,” from the band’s upcoming September release Hey What.
Accompanied by a music video directed by Julie Casper Roth, the strange video is described in the press release as: “metaphorically explores the Sisyphean task of dismantling structural oppression, through gender biases.”
The upcoming release will be the band’s thirteenth album and the third time they’ve worked with producer B.J. Burton .
“The new album finds the group focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share,” according to the press release.
“These 10 pieces—each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook—are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse—building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks FORWARD, with teeth.”
Indie rock trail-blazer Dean Wareham (Luna, Galaxie 500) will drop a new solo album – I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. We have the first single, “The Past is Our Plaything.”
“‘The Past Is Our Plaything’ was recorded at a studio on Stinson Beach, just north of San Francisco, in November 2020,” Wareham said. ” The song sorta grew out of observations by Julian Barnes in my favorite book last year—the Man In the Red Coat—about a collection of dandies, drug addicts, artists and writers in belle epoque France and England.”
Wareham’s last solo album was released in 2014. Since he’s worked on the soundtrack for Mistress America with his wife, Britta Phillips, and reunited and toured with Luna.
“The hard thing is just to start,” Wareham says of the gap between solo albums. “When I sat down and did it, the songs came pretty quickly.”
Papercuts’ Jason Quever produced and played on the album, which also features Phillips on bass, vocals, and keys, and Roger Brogan on drums.
In terms of the album’s title, I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A., and what he would say if he actually met the mayor of Los Angeles, where Wareham and Phillips have been based since 2013, Wareham responds: “It’s gonna happen. But the answer is right there too—I have nothing to say.”
The under-the-radar Swedish duo, Sand & Stones, has released a new video track of which the band says: “This is a contemporary song about the opportunity to reconnect with new aspects of yourself and bring awareness to what truly matters. In these changing times, things rise to the surface and by reconnecting to our true nature we will easily adjust to the new lifestyle we seek. You can find all answers within, in love, let´s live.”
The song is a seductive mix of dream pop and Americana guitar picking. Very unique and interesting. Most importantly, it works very nicely; a video track that sticks with you.
The video itself is nothing particularly exciting but it does fit with the audio.
Amsterdam‘s four-piece outfit Pip Blom has dropped a new video single, “You Don’t Want This,” head of an album release in October titled Welcome Break.
Director Sara Elzinga said: “When I first heard ‘You Don’t Want This,’ I recognized the feeling of self-consciousness; knowing that people have a certain way of looking at you, that does not necessarily comply with the image you have of yourself. The concept of a Matryoshka doll then stuck in my head, having these multiple versions of yourself that are hidden at first. The set reminds us of a dollhouse, of someone who is so comfortable in their own scenery, they forget to look at the world outside of the room. Though rather than making a music video about anxiety, I wanted the video to be about self-acceptance. Smiling back at yourself, instead of constantly criticizing which is something people tend to do.”
Pip Blom, the name of the band’s frontwoman, is backed by her brother, Tender Blom. Of 20 bedroom songs recorded by Pip, 16 of those were ripped as demos.