Video premiere: Soft Swells, ‘Lights Run’

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Soft Swells
Soft Swells

The world seems torn asunder right now, wracked by bitter divides, amplified by the daily tsunami of vitriol spilt on social media. But there is love. There is family. There is music. And Soft Swells’ new single “Lights Run” is a reminder to keep them in the conversation. Songwriter Tim Williams’ indie-pop lullaby appears on Soft Swells’ forthcoming third full-length, “Be Young,” out May 26. “It’s a love song I wrote at 2 a.m. for both my wife and daughter when our house finally found a bit of quiet,” Williams says of the song, which, in the innocence that sometimes strikes in the wee hours, reminds that “we are not dead yet.”

Director Dylan Marko Bell’s video for the song finds Williams on the beach in Malibu before sunrise. “We shot the video in double time, and then slowed it down so the vocals would match the tempo of the song — but the waves would still be nearly frozen in time,” Williams says, adding jokingly, “The director made me get in the freezing cold ocean at the start for far too many takes. It must have been punishment for something I said.” Or maybe it was just a bracing reminder: We are not dead yet.

||| Watch: The video for “Lights Run”

||| Previously: “Reins”