Video premiere: United Ghosts, ‘Waves’

Kevin Bronson on July 13th, 2018

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On their debut album and follow-up EP in 2013 and ’14, respectively, United Ghosts carved out a space amid the constellations of dream-poppers and shoegazers, creating their own astral plane with echoing guitars, pulsing electronics and boy/girl vocals. And in the video for their new single “Waves,” the band — built around the duo of Axel Steuerwald and Sha Sabi — invite listeners to join them on their wavelength. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space. And in water, and time. If you’re coming along, it helps to pack a magical suitcase filled with strange energy.

“Waves surround us every day — radio, phone, magnetic, sound, light, satellites and, of course, ocean waves, we thought of all of those while writing,” Steuerwald says. “The video picks up the theme of Saturn, playing with the idea of Saturn coming closer and bringing a strange new energy with it, something phosphorescent and highly magnetic … waves following the spell of a mysterious suitcase from deep underwater to the highest clifftop, to Saturn and beyond.”

This keeps with the theme for United Ghosts’ new album, “Saturn Days” (due Aug. 24 on Cleopatra Records). It sees the band incorporate more electronic elements in their reverberating goodness. Informed by the duo’s extensive travels over the past few years — as well some stargazing, if only to avoid dwelling on the dystopian mess right before their eyes — it even features an instrumental track “written around the sound emissions from the planet Saturn.”

||| Watch: The video for “Waves”