Daiana Feuer on March 7th, 2017

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Sydney Banta dedicates her new L.A. Girlfriend video to her nana, a pioneer of aerobics training who went by the name Ginger Snaps in the 1970s. The song, “Death & Peonies” is “about loss and the war we tend to wage with ourselves in the decision to ‘let go,'” Banta says. Her nana was “a pretty fierce lady. Dancer, baker, business woman, mother, you name it: There was nothing she couldn’t do.” In the video, shot by Shan Liljestrand, Banta’s band manager Alysia Russo gets all swervy in a dance studio “for an evening of sick lighting and fitness,” as Banta describes.

The song comes from a new double-EP “inspired by the dualities of human nature and the fluidity of character” called “Rex & Regina.” Latin for “king” and “queen,” the album at first was created as one record, “but because 2017 is for living on the edge,” she split them in two. She says, “The concept of royalty has always been interesting to me. I have a secret soft spot in my heart for the gaudy, but I’m also drawn to all the things surrounding ‘royalty’—like pride, strength, excess, tradition, etc. Looking through that lens toward human behavior and emotional process, I started to explore ‘Rex’ and ‘Regina’ as the ‘two sides of the same coin;’ that coin being me.

“Which brings me to the music itself: each collection of songs encompasses both sides. I’m a romantic at heart, but boy do I love me some distorted, hard synth sounds too. So in true LAGF form, I’ve continued to play off contrast while further evolving my sound.”

“Rex” arrives on March 24.

||| Watch: “Death & Peonies”

||| Previously: “Gentlemen”