Category: New Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Laure Briard Takes VIewers on a Tour of a Surreal Cinematic Universe

Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter Laure Briard has had a highly uncommon path to professional music. Briard bounced around several different interests and passions she studied literature and criminology and even acted for a bit before concentrating on music full-time back in 2013.

After the release of her debut EP through Tricatel Records, Briard met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps, and the trio began working on the material that would eventually become her full-length debut, 2015’s Révélation. Inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan, Révélation featured modern and poetic lyricism.

Briard then signed with Midnight Special Records, who released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse. Since Sur la Pisa de Danse, Briard’s work has increasingly been influenced by Bossa nova: 2018’s Coração Louco, featured lyrics written and sung in Portuguese — and a guest spot from acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays and Latin Grammy Award nominated act Boogarins. 2019’s  Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit, which was released through Michel Records in Canada, Midnight Special Records in Europe and Burger Records here in the States continued Briard’s ongoing love affair with Bossa nova and Brazilian music. 

Released earlier this year through Michel Records in North America, Dinosaur City Records in Australia and Midnight Special Records in Europe, the Toulouse-based singer/songwriter’s latest effort Eu Voo sees Briard continuing her successful collaboration with Boogarins, as well as with her longtime collaborators Vincent Guyot, a.k.a. Octopus and Marius Duflot.

In the lead up to the EP’s release, I wrote about two of the EP’s released singles:

  • EP title track “Eu Voo,” 60s Scott Walker-like orchestral psych pop meets 70s AM radio rock-like take on Bossa nova, featuring Briard’s ethereal vocals cooing in Portuguese, twinkling Rhodes, shimmering guitars and jazz-fusion that evokes the swooning euphoria of reuniting with a long-lost love. 
  • “Supertrama,” which continues in a similar path as its predecessor — 60s Scott Walker-like orchestral psych pop meeting 70s AM radio rock     featuring twinkling piano, shuffling jazz-like drumming, a sinuous bass line, a regal horn arrangement, angular bursts of guitar and a soaring hook within an expansive yet breezy song arrangement. But just underneath the breezy surface, the song evokes a familiar bittersweet ache. 

Eu Voo’s latest single “Não Me Diz Nada”is a breezy, orchestral psych pop meets 70s AM radio rock meets smooth jazz take on Bossa nova centered around two guitar-led melody, twinkling keys, shuffling jazz drumming, a clarinet solo and Briard’s dreamy and ethereal delivery. The song’s title, which translates into English as “Don’t Tell Me Anything” references how body language and gestures often speak for themselves — and loudly. Briard explains that she came into the studio with some words in Portuguese about a man, who gave off mixed messages.

Directed by Ruby Cicero, the recently released video for “Não Me Diz Nada” stars Briard as a wanted, gun toting criminal, criss-crossing France while on the run. Visually, the video references Thelma and Louise, Pulp Fiction, David Lynch, Hitchcock and Ridley Scott among others as we see Briard’s outlaw encountering odd characters.

“Thanks to Laure’s training as an actress, and her studies in criminology, we have created a woman with multiple facets: a candid thief who, with her changes of hairstyle and identity, looks a bit like Tippie Hedren in No Springtime for Marnie. Bold as a lonely Thelma who doesn’t have Louise’s nostalgia, Laure meets singular characters on her path, both comical and disturbing, whom she knows how to face,” Ruby Cicero explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The KVB Offers a Glimpse Into Our Dystopian Future

Currently based out of Manchester, UK, the acclaimed shoegazers and JOVM mainstay outfit The KVB initially started in 2010 as the solo recording project of founder, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Wood. Wood released a series of limited cassette an vinyl releases as a solo recording project; but by 2011, vocalist, keyboardist and visual artist Kat Day joined the project.

In the decade since Day joined the project, The KVB have released several critically applauded albums and EPs through a number of different labels before signing to Geoff Barrow‘s Invada Records,who released 2018’s Only Now Forever. Interestingly, each of the duo’s acclaimed releases saw them crafting a sound simultaneously inspired by The Jesus and Mary Chain and Cabaret Voltaire; however, with each subsequent effort, the band has managed to streamline their sound.

Through extensive touring across the European Union, the UK, China, Russia and Japan, the duo have amassed a devoted fanbase globally. Now, as you may recall during the pandemic, Day and Wood relocated from Berlin to Manchester to work on their sixth album, the Andy Savors-produced Unity. Slated for a November 26, 2021 release through Invada Records, the duo’s sixth album will reportedly represent a new and exciting development in their sonic development: Through the album’s ten songs, the duo pull together their trademark components, radiant guitars, textured synths and an near for a moody, brooding melody paired with a renewed dynamism.

Interestingly, the initial writing sessions for their forthcoming album took place in Spain during early 2019, where the duo found influence from the “half built luxury villas, still unfinished from the crash in 2008. There was something eerie and beautiful about the desolate landscapes and concrete in the sunshine,” the band says in press notes. While their sound and approach has always been informed by what seems like our inevitable dystopian future, there is also more of a rapturous release to the material. Thematically, the album combines double meanings and there’s a sleight of hand present.

Earlier this year, I wrote about “World on Fire,” a single that found the duo continuing to refine their sound: Starting with burst of drum machine, the song was centered around buzzing and slashing power chords, shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a relentless motorik groove and a euphoric hook paired with the duo’s breathy boy-girl harmonies. Sonically, the track — to my ears, at least — found the duo pushing the boundaries of shoegaze in a similar fashion to Lightfoils, BLACKSTONE RNGRS and others while giving their sound a gauzy, New Order-like sheen. 

“Unité,” Unity‘s latest single may arguably be their most dance floor friendly track of their growing catalog: Centered around thumping beats, shimmering synth arpeggios, and a relentlessly hypnotic, motorik groove paired with Kat Day’s ethereal deadpan delivery, “Unité” sounds as though it could have easily been part of the Trans Europe Express or Man Machine sessions. The duo explains that the new single is “a homage to our time living in Berlin, with the pounding kick drum and grinding electronics.” Te song is a perfect example of the Manchester-based duo meshing dark and light sensibilities in a seamless fashion: while being a euphoric club banger, the song references urbanization and its dystopian potential.

The recently released video is set in a dystopian future, much like that in Minority Report, in which the viewer is inundated by advertisements and screens.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brussels’ Romina Palmeri Releases a Gorgeous Bachata Ballad

Romina Palmeri is a Brussels-born and-based, Italian-Belgian singer/songwriter and dancer, who can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood: growing up in a family of musicians and performers, Palmeri was surrounded by the music and rhythms of the Mediterranean and of her Italian heritage. At a very young age, the Italian-Belgian artist trained in classical dance and hip-hop and began singing.

After studying sports and animation in high school, Palmeri’s love of the stage and of performing led her to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where she earned a Master’s Degree in theater and speech. Upon graduation, she landed several roles as an actor including Solange in Lucy Mattot’s A coups de ciseaux de couture, a montage of Jean Genet’s Les Bonnes. Since 2016, the Brussels-born and-based artist has landed roles in Festival Bruxellons! productions of musicals like Evita, Sunset Boulevard and My Fair Lady. Palmeri has also played Studio 100’s and Ketnet’s Mega Mindy.

In late 2019, the Italian-Belgian artist played Yvette in Bertolt Brecht’s Mére Courage et set enfants, directed by Christine Delmotte. She then joined the cast of the musical Notre Dame de Paris, playing the roles of Esmeralda and Fluer-de-Lys. And since last year, she has has been the understudy for the roles of Maria, Elvira and Isabel for he musical, Don Juan.

Despite what seems like an already busy schedule, Palmeri has managed a music career: she has contributed backing vocals to several albums by Francesco Palmeri and Frédéric François‘ 2013 effort Amor Latino. She is currently working and recording her own original material, as well as covers in French, Spanish, Italian and English.

Earlier this year, Palmeri released a gorgeous cover of Selena’s “Dame un beso.” Building upon the momentum of that cover, the Italian-Belgian’s latest single is an original track, “Dulce Miel,” written in the traditional bachata ballad style. Centered around shimmering acoustic guitars and bachata rhythms, “Dulce Miel” is roomy enough for Palmeri’s gorgeous and expressive pop star-like vocals. As a native Queens boy, the song brought back memories of hearing bachata out of the windows of local house parties — but as Palmeri explains, the song is a passionate love song with a very simple message: love always wins.

Directed by Georges Vanev, the recently released and sensual video for “Dulce Miel” stars Palmeri and Julio César Gutarra as a beautiful, young couple, who are madly in love.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Emerging French Duo The Pink crows Take Viewers Through a Tour of the Galaxy

Emerging French electro pop duo The Pink Crows — Swedish-born, French-based Hanna Hågglund (vocals) and French-born and-based Franck Rapp (production) — can trace their origins to a chance meeting that for the duo may have been destined. The French electro pop duo specialize in and sound and approach that meshes 70s and 80s rock and funk with electronic production.

The duo’s latest single, “Les Montagnes Russes” is centered around a sinuous, 70s disco-inspired bass line, twinkling keys, shimmering synths, skittering four-on- the-floor, Hågglund’s ethereal cooing and a rousingly anthemic hook. The end result is a song that finds the duo crafting a slick and infectious synthesis of Giorgio Moroder-like disco and Dead Blue era Still Corners.

Produced by Franck Rapp and Antonio Maria Da Silva, the recently released video for “Les Montagnes Russes” features a collection of humans leaving an Earth-like planet being bombarded by asteroids on a traveling club that travels through the galaxy, like a sort of intergalactic subway. At each stop, a few more gorgeous people and some aliens join the non-stop party, a part that goes past the planets of our solar system, past a black hole and towards a cosmic disco ball — because, of course.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Orielles’ Henry Carlyle’s Gorgeous Solo Debut

Halifax, UK-born, Manchester-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Henry Carlyle is best known for his work in acclaimed JOVM mainstay act The Orielles. Carlyle steps into the spotlight as a solo artist with the release of his debut single “The Ground.”

Clocking in at a smidge under six minutes, “The Ground” which features guest spots from Julia Bardo, (backing vocals, bass, sax) and Jake Bogacki (drums), is centered around Carlyle’s world weary and heartbroken delivery, wiry guitars, bursts of twinkling glockenspiel, and an intimate and dusty, lo-fi like production. Although the “The Ground” possesses an expansive song structure, it’s a decided sonic departure from Carlyle’s primary gig, the song finds The Orielles co-founder eschewing the strobe lights of the disco for thoughtful and lived-in lyricism and earthy arrangements — while sounding a bit like Daman Albarn’s solo work.

Described by Carlyle as “a song about displacement,” the song’s origins can be traced back to a winter day in which the Halifax-born, Manchester-based singer/songwriter and guitarist began writing down his fractious thoughts of his unanchored passing through time and space. “It was inspired by floating through the universe and through time bouncing off events and other humans, never really knowing where you should be or what you should be doing anyway” Carlyle explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tampa’s Glove Releases a Frenetic Yet Dance Floor Friendly Ripper

Rising Tampa-based indie act Glove can trace their origins back to 2017: the band’s founding members Rod Wendt, Brie Deux and Michelle Primiani started playing music. Justin Burns joined shortly thereafter, and the band quickly established their sound, which blends 80s synth-based New Wave with elements of contemporary rock ‘n’ roll,.

The Tampa based indie outfit honed their show through two years of self-booking DIY shows, and then opening for The Nude Party and Broncho on a string of East Coast shows. The members of Glove caught the attention of Cage the Elephant‘s Brad Shultz, who produced the band’s forthcoming, full-length debut Boom Nights.

Boom Nights‘ first single “Glass” was released in April and landed on Spotify’s New Noise playlist. Since then, the Tampa based band has hit the road: they finished a month-long tour with White Reaper and have played sets at Lollapalooza and Levitation. They’ll play a handful of dates with Wavves this month.

2022 looks to be a breakthrough year for the Tampa-based quartet: they’ll begin the year touring with A Place to Bury Strangers and Boom Nights will see its release. As always, tour dates are below. But in the meantime the album’s third and latest single “Modern Toy,” which features the band’s Brie Deux taking up lead vocal duties, is a frenetic yet dance floor friendly ripper that’s one-part Freedom of Choice era Devo, one-part Fever to Tell era Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

“‘Modern Toy’ refers to the dark underbelly of Hollywood,” Glove’s Brie Deux says. “The song slowly creeps up and starts revealing the frustrations and alienation within the entertainment industry. It all leads up to a full fledge lash out, where the industry has completely consumed the person and reveals they’re nothing but a prop. This can be interpreted in any industry or life and for anyone who is being used or treated unjustly. I dedicate this song to Britney Spears.”

The recently released video features the band’s Brie Deux is a Tron-inspired silver jumpsuit and silver wraparound shades. If you’re a child of the 80s as I am, the video brings back a lot of memories.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Choses Sauvages Takes You on a Late Night “The Matrix”-like tour

With the release of their Emmanuel Ethier-produced 2018 self-titled, full-length debut, the Montreal dance punk outfit Choses Sauvages — Totalement Sublime‘s Marc-Antoine Barbier (guitar), Theirry Malépart (keys), Tony Bélisle (keys), Philippe Gauthier-Boudreau (drums) and Félix Bélisle (vocals, bass) — quickly exploded both locally and across Québec: the album was released to widespread critical applause across the province. Their self-titled album received a Félix Award nomination Alternative Album of the Year at the 2019 Association Québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) and a Félix Award for the Indie Rock Album of the Year. The album also topped the Independent Radio Charts across the province.

The band, along with their friend Foreign Diplomats‘ Charles Primeau (bass), who joins the band live, supported their self-titled debut during 2019 with a relentless tour schedule seemingly playing every joint and every festival stage across the province, developing a reputation for an explosive live show. Adding to a growing profile, the rising Montreal outfit went on tour with acclaimed act Half Moon Run.

Choses Sauvages’ highly-anticipated sophomore album, Choses Sauvages II is slated for an October 15, 2021 release through Audiogram. Sonically, the album finds the rising French Canadian outfit boldly pushing their sound towards more electronic and nu-disco influences, like L’Imperatice and Lindstrøm while still drawing from their love of funk, Bowie and Bee Gees. Interestingly, as a result, the album’s material finds the members of Choses Sauvages balancing a rigorous and meticulous songwriting approach with a long-held rebellious spirit.

Choses Sauvages II‘s third and latest single “Chambre d’écho” is a slinky Duran Duran meets Talking Heads banger centered around squiggling Nile Rodgers-like guitar, handclaps, a sinuous bass line, glistening synths, propulsive four-on-the-floor and an enormous, arena rock friendly hook. It’s the sort of song that will make you long for strobe-lit dance floors and sweaty clubs dancing the night — and your concerns — away.

Directed by Léa Dumoulin, the recently released video is heavily indebted to 1999’s The Matrix: we see the members of the band sending mysterious light-based signals to the video’s protagonist, as everyone travels to abandoned buildings and clandestine, late night, sweaty raves.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Holy Fuck Teams Up with Kero Kero Bonito’s Sarah Bonito on the Frenetic “Airport Dreams”

Acclaimed Toronto-based electronic rock outfit Holy Fuck — Brian Borcherdt, Graham Walsh, Matt McQuaid and Matt Schultz — have developed and honed a long-held reputation for playing and crating by their own rules, while never being overly concerned about chasing the limelight or after genre-based trends. Along with that, they’ve established a unique, gritty, analog-based sound created through the use of both organic instruments and non-instruments including a 35mm film synchronizer, toy keyboards and toy phaser guns to achieve electronic-sounding effects without the use of laptops, programmed backing tracks, splicing and so on.

The Toronto-based act’s fifth album, last year’s Deleter found the band boldly pushing their sound in a new direction: polyrhythmic and euphoric, the album’s material meshed elements of krautrock, deep house and trance fittingly paired with relentless motorik groove. Thematically, the album explored what happens when humanity and technology coalesce into one big semi-organic celebration of the joys of spontaneity, repetition and individuality. As the band puts it, “the robots are smarter than ever, and the algorithm knows more and more what we like as individuals, but we have to remind ourselves that there is music in the margins that can go missing and that that music is more important than ever.”

Of course, much like countless other acts across the globe, the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the acclaimed Canadian act’s plans to tour to support the album. But interestingly enough, they’ve managed to work on a new single, “Airport Dreams,” a collaboration with Kero Kero Bonito‘s Sarah Bonito. Interestingly, the new single sees the members of Holy Fuck continuing to push their sound in new directions — this time in a decidedly pop friendly direction: Featuring a more polished production, the track features snappier beats, razor sharp hooks and Sarah Bonito’s coquettish vocals while retaining the fuzzy and dusty analog texture of their previously released material.

Thematically and lyrically, the song evokes the frustration, boredom and longing for the places, people and things we couldn’t enjoy and experience as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions — and the hope of being able to travel, to see and do things, to see and be around others.

In a personal statement, Holy Fuck dive into the background behind the creative inspiration:

“Contrary to our usual method of recording ‘live off the studio floor’ where we prefer to hash out and capture the core of our songs together in the same room, we found ourselves, like a lot of people in 2020/21, working remotely. This meant building up tracks and song ideas separately at our own various recording and rehearsal spaces and then sharing them with each other online. In spite of the physical distance, we still dug into our classic ‘holy fuck spirit’: embracing whatever tools we have at hand to make the music we want. Voice memos of drum ideas Matt Schulz recorded of himself playing at home were shared, then edited together, forming the rhythmic foundation for ‘Airport Dreams.’ This later gave life to Matt McQuaid’s bass parts which were recorded over WiFi from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to Toronto, Ontario. Situations are not always ideal, but can be used to an advantage – idea over execution. Branching even further into the spirit of collaboration, we sent these ideas to an incredibly talented artist, Sarah Bonito (of Kero Kero Bonito). Sarah’s super catchy and inspiring vocal parts were initially intended for a different song altogether. Their frenetic energy, however, became the catalyst for what is now called “Airport Dreams”. 

“During lockdown, I was having recurring dreams about being at the airport catching a flight every night,” Kero Kero Bonito’s Sarah Bonito says of the new single. “I feel like my mind was trying to break free from the physical constraints by travelling the universe whilst I slept. We are all free in our dreams!”

The recently released video for “Airport Dreams” features footage of the members of the acclaimed Canadian electronic act performing the song, superimposed with aviation and travel stock footage — people boarding planes, planes taking off and people exploring foreign places. We also see Sarah Bonito playing with her phone, goofing off and sleeping, presumably dreaming of the places she’d go if she were able to. Ah, how that feels so very familiar!

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Isle of Wight-Based Duo Wet Leg Release a Feverish Visual for Hook-Driven “Wet Dream”

Enigmatic Isle of Wight, UK-based duo Wet Leg — Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers — emerged into the national and international scenes in June with the release of their debut single “Chaise Lounge,” which has amassed over 3,000,000 streams through DSPs and 1,000,000 views. The song managed to win the praise of Paramore‘s Hayley Williams, Florence and the Machine’s Florence Welch, and the legendary Iggy Pop. With the rising buzz surrounding them, the Isle of Wight-based duo recently signed to Domino Recording Co.

Clocking in at a little over 2:30, the British duo’s latest single “Wet Dream” is a hook-driven guitar pop confection that’s one-part Elastica-era Brit Pop, one-part Phil Spector girl pop, and one-part neurotic post punk delivered with a self-assured and stylish panache. “‘Wet Dream’ is a breakup song; it came about when one of my ex’s went through a stage of texting me after we’d broken up telling me that ‘he had a dream about me,'” Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale explains.

Directed by the band’s Rhian Teasdale, the recently released video for “Wet Dream” is a surrealistic fever dream, shot in the English countryside with the British duo wearing old-fashioned dresses and plastic lobster claws.

The duo also announced their first run of Stateside shows with tickets on sale October 1, 2021 at 10am local time. The tour includes a December 8, 2021 stop at Baby’s All Right. Tour dates are below and you can buy tickets here: https://www.wetlegband.com/#

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: White Lies Release a Mesmerizing Visual for an Anthemic Yet Intimate Exploration of Vulnerability

Acclaimed London-based post-punk act and JOVM mainstays White Lies — Harry McVeigh (vocals. guitar), Charles Cave (bass, vocals) and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums) — can trace their origins to a band that they started while they were all in high school called Fear of Flying. Although the band’s Charles Cave has publicly described Fear of Flying as a “weekend project” and one of many bands that each of the individual members were involved in at the time, Fear of Flying managed to release two Stephen Street-produced double A-side singles released through Young and Lost Club Records. 

Building upon the initial buzz surrounding them, Fear of Flying earned opening slots for The Maccabees, Jamie T, and Laura Marling. They completed a national tour as an opener, and they played the inaugural Underage Festival. 

Two weeks before the trio were to start college, they decided that they would take a second gap year to write and perform new material, which coincidentally they felt didn’t quite suite their current project. “I felt as though i couldn’t write about anything personal, so I would make up semi-comical stories that weren’t really important to anyone, not even me,” Charles Cave reflected on that period. Fear of Flying broke up in 2007 with a MySpace status that read “Fear of Flying is DEAD . . . White Lies is alive!,” before introducing a new name that the trio felt better represented their newfound maturity — and a much darker sound.

Officially forming in October 2007, the members of the then-newly formed White Lies delayed their first live shows for five months to build up media hype. And as the story goes, a few days after their live debut, the band signed with Fiction Records, who released the band’s first two singles — “Unfinished Business” and “Death,” which quickly drew comparisons to Joy Division, Editors, The Killers and Interpol. As a result of the buzz that their first two official singles earned, the London-based JOVM mainstays toured across the UK and North America, including a headlining BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend Festival set, a slot on 2009’s NME Awards tour, and number of appearances across the international festival circuit.

2009 saw the release of the act’s breakthrough, full-length debut To Lose My Life, which was released on the heels of being prominently featured in multiple “ones to watch” polls for that year, including BBC’s Sound of 2009 poll and the BRIT Critics’ Choice Award. To Lose My life earned the trio the distinction of being their first #1 album on the British Charts, and the first album by a British act that year to debut at #1.

White Lies third album, 2013’s Ed Bueller-produced Big TV was a critical and commercial success with the album debuting at #4 on the UK charts. The album’s material was centered around a narrative structure that followed a romantic couple, who leave a provincial area for a big city. Thematically, the material focused on equality and equity within a relationship. Interestingly, album single “Getting Even” landed at #1 on the Polish Singles charts.

The band’s fifth album, 2019’s aptly titled FIVE continued a run of material that found the band deftly balancing an ambitious arena rock friendly sound with enormous hooks and swaggering bombast with intimate and confessional, singer/songwriter pop lyrics. Album singles like “Time to Give,” “Tokyo” “Jo” and “Believe It” describe relationships on the brink of collapse and/or suffering through one of both parties’ dysfunction while rooted in the uncertainty, confusion, heartache and bitterness that romantic relationships often engender. And it all comes from a very lived-in, real place that should familiar to most, if not all of us.

FIVE also continued a remarkable and enviable run of commercially and critically successful material, with the album landing on UK Charts’ Top 15. The band supported the album with an extensive bit of touring that included a headlining stop at Irving Plaza. The London-based JOVM mainstay capped off a big 2019 with standalone single, the Andrew Wells-produced “Hurt My Heart,” which was recorded during a hiatus from touring.

White Lies’ highly anticipated sixth album, the Ed Bueller and Claudius Mittendorfer co-produced As I Try Not To Fall Apart is slated for a February 18, 2022 release through [PIAS]. Along with the album announcement, the trio and their long-time label home released the album’s latest single, album title track “As I Try Not To Fall Apart.” Featuring glistening synth arpeggios, thunderous boom bap-like drumming, McVeigh’s plaintive vocals, a hypnotic motorik-like groove, bursts of twinkling keys and their unerring knack for crafting an enormous hook “”As I Try Not To Fall Apart” is a psychologically precise character study of a desperate man, who feels stuck in a prescribed gender role while trying to accept and be comfortable with his vulnerability and weakness.

“We wrote this song quickly, late one night, and often the songs which come quickest are written from the gut and the heart, not with the head,” the members of White Lies explain. “We wanted the melody to feel like a hymn, to give the confessional lyrics weight despite being wrapped up as a pop song. It’s about accepting vulnerability as a man, and knowing it’s ok to be broken. There’s never been a more pressing time to spread the message that it’s ok to not be ok.” 

Directed by James Arden, a.k.a. The Trash Factory, the recently released video features the band’s frontman Harry McVeigh broodingly sitting on an ornate chair in a room with couple of inches of sand. As McVeigh sings the song, more sand is dumped on him.

“The track made me think of people trying to lift themselves out of emotional spirals – navigating feelings of fragility and fighting everyday pressures just so they can keep it together – and it made me think about how we can be buried and overwhelmed by our feelings and emotions, and how we could explore that, visually,” James Arden explains in press notes.

White Lies’ Harry McVeigh adds, “Being buried in sand was too mad to pass up. The sensation was really chilling and I was picking sand out of my ears for days, but I’m thrilled with the video, it really carries the message of the song and it looks beautiful.”