Vancouver indie popsters the Shilohs are back with a new video for "Sleep City," and Exclaim! is giving you an exclusive first look at it.
The track arrived earlier this year as a stand-alone flexi-disc single, ahead of the band's forthcoming third LP, Tender Regions. Johnny Payne wrote it as a reflection on the place he grew up — Victoria — and the things that have changed since he lived there. The Princess Marguerite ship and cocktail bar, cemeteries, gardens and a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum all spring to mind as memories long gone, but the imagery of latter particularly inspired the track.
"I was thinking about the old wax museum and I wondered if it was hot enough that day to melt all the wax figures," Payne explained in a statement. "I laughed picturing all these actors and princes and princesses and singers slowly deforming until they are reduced to puddles of melted wax like in that Vincent Price movie. The museum was already long closed but that imagery seemed all too intriguing. The fleetingness of fame and the idea that all things once beloved will eventually be gone and forgotten. The song is about the disintegration of everything, beautiful or not."
The clip itself was directed by Dave Biddle. It moves between VHS-quality live-action footage and animated segments, melting and shifting like a heat wave.
"In Canada at least, heat waves are characterized by good weather at its uncomfortable excess, and create a confusing environment of summer laziness and warm relaxing nights combined with near insanity and atmospheric oppression," Biddle said. "This video tip toes the fine line between blissful summer nostalgia and spontaneous loss of psychological stability. A fine line indeed."
It's a timely clip for anyone in Southern Ontario and Quebec this week, but everyone else in Canada can vicariously experience a killer heat wave by watching the clip for "Sleep City" down below.
The track arrived earlier this year as a stand-alone flexi-disc single, ahead of the band's forthcoming third LP, Tender Regions. Johnny Payne wrote it as a reflection on the place he grew up — Victoria — and the things that have changed since he lived there. The Princess Marguerite ship and cocktail bar, cemeteries, gardens and a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum all spring to mind as memories long gone, but the imagery of latter particularly inspired the track.
"I was thinking about the old wax museum and I wondered if it was hot enough that day to melt all the wax figures," Payne explained in a statement. "I laughed picturing all these actors and princes and princesses and singers slowly deforming until they are reduced to puddles of melted wax like in that Vincent Price movie. The museum was already long closed but that imagery seemed all too intriguing. The fleetingness of fame and the idea that all things once beloved will eventually be gone and forgotten. The song is about the disintegration of everything, beautiful or not."
The clip itself was directed by Dave Biddle. It moves between VHS-quality live-action footage and animated segments, melting and shifting like a heat wave.
"In Canada at least, heat waves are characterized by good weather at its uncomfortable excess, and create a confusing environment of summer laziness and warm relaxing nights combined with near insanity and atmospheric oppression," Biddle said. "This video tip toes the fine line between blissful summer nostalgia and spontaneous loss of psychological stability. A fine line indeed."
It's a timely clip for anyone in Southern Ontario and Quebec this week, but everyone else in Canada can vicariously experience a killer heat wave by watching the clip for "Sleep City" down below.