S.Lo on September 7th, 2018

0

L.A.-by-way-of-New Zealand brother-sister synth duo BROODS (Georgia and Caleb Nott) blur the lines between selves as artists and selves as art packaged for mass consumption via the convention of a ’70s-era evening talk show, canned applause included, in the video for their first single via Neon Gold/Atlantic Records, “Peach.”

Directed by fellow New Zealander Sam Kristofski, the pair play with alter egos, trying them on with abandon in the name of entertainment. Underneath the masks, Georgia sings from a center of solitude, “Love the peace when I feel alone / It’s a part of me that I never run from.” Upon encounters with more of the world outside, that inner peace gets disturbed and morphed into a numbness while the alter ego spins out into highs and lows with “no control.” By the chorus, the pair are in complete abandon and “Everything’s lookin’ peach now” as they give in to total pop sellout mode (pun intended, with various stripes of glitzy fashion). The middle-eight, visually tongue-in-cheek and over-emotive with frosty blue eyeshadow spread thick and a discoball spinning above, is where Georgia acknowledges that the manicness might be justified by the love they feel when their feet are back on the ground. However, is that real or simply another mask? The last chorus and outro then become a hallucinatory dream with hyper-reality fusing with animation.

It could all be a reflection of the wild roller-coaster ride they’ve been on since they first hit gold in their homeland and made their way to Hollywood. It takes grit to remain grounded at one’s core and smile in the face of external pressures to sell oneself as one sells one’s art. Keep calm (and reflectively self-effacing) and carry on, we say. All’s “peach” now.

||| Watch: The video for “Peach”

||| Also stream: “Eyes a Mess”

||| Live: Broods will play at the Roxy on Sept. 26. Tickets