Grouper has shared a video for "Ode to the Blue," the second single from her upcoming record Shade. The romantic visual, directed by Dicky Bahto, features a very brief appearance from art-pop luminary Julia Holter. Check it out below.
In a press release, Bahto said about the video:
Liz [Harris] sent me a love song in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic in Los Angeles to think about making a film for. I was depressed and scared and felt incapable of thinking. She mentioned picturing people kissing; and "maybe something in a graveyard." I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to feel intimacy again. I thought: What if the film is just people making out in graveyards?
In Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights I found myself surrounded by graves for people who, like my own grandparents, had survived the Armenian and Assyrian genocide a little over a hundred years ago. After a year of fear over the pandemic, growing support for right-wing authoritarianism, and the escalating climate crisis — with a popular narrative that we're living through the end of the world — I needed the reminder that the end of the world is always happening somewhere, and even if we don't survive the end of our world, we might as well enjoy the pleasures of love. Watching my friends kiss was a hot, fresh breath direct from their mouths that made me feel a joy I hadn't experienced in far too long.
Shade is out October 22 on Kranky. It's the full-length follow-up to 2018's Grid of Points and features the previously released "Unclean Mind."
In a press release, Bahto said about the video:
Liz [Harris] sent me a love song in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic in Los Angeles to think about making a film for. I was depressed and scared and felt incapable of thinking. She mentioned picturing people kissing; and "maybe something in a graveyard." I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to feel intimacy again. I thought: What if the film is just people making out in graveyards?
In Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights I found myself surrounded by graves for people who, like my own grandparents, had survived the Armenian and Assyrian genocide a little over a hundred years ago. After a year of fear over the pandemic, growing support for right-wing authoritarianism, and the escalating climate crisis — with a popular narrative that we're living through the end of the world — I needed the reminder that the end of the world is always happening somewhere, and even if we don't survive the end of our world, we might as well enjoy the pleasures of love. Watching my friends kiss was a hot, fresh breath direct from their mouths that made me feel a joy I hadn't experienced in far too long.
Shade is out October 22 on Kranky. It's the full-length follow-up to 2018's Grid of Points and features the previously released "Unclean Mind."
