Video: Stephen Malkmus, ‘Shadowbanned’

S.Lo on February 28th, 2020

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First, there is now a “Being Stephen Malkmus” Instagram filter (tag @stephenmalkmus and @matadorrecords when you use it).

Second, counting as Malkmus‘ third solo album (including “Sparkle Hard,” released under the Jicks from 2018, and “Groove Denied” from 2019), the Pavement frontman’s new album, “Traditional Techniques,” releases March 6 on Matador and marks the last of a trilogy of albums released in consecutive years. Inspired by the variety of acoustic instruments at Portland’s Halfling Studio and diving further into Afghani acoustic strings, Malkmus teamed up with engineer/arranger-in-residence Chris Funk (The Decemberists) and Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Skunk, Chavez, Zwan) to realize the new directions explored in this album.

The new single released this week is the low-fi, psychedelic, twang-infused (Malkmus is calling it “new phase folk”) “Shadowbanned.” It’s accompanied by a video (produced and directed by Jan Lankisch) filled to the brim with cameos by Mac DeMarco, Jason Schwartzman, Kim Gordon, Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile, Conor Oberst, Orono Noguchi and more having their hand in using the new digital face filter, in addition to classic Pavement videos featuring Malkmus blurred out or pixelated. “The video was inspired by reading about female singers and musicians who were photoshopped from their album covers by an Iranian music streaming site,” said Lankisch. His idea (with Janosch Pugnaghi) for the Instagram filter took the concept of erasure further into the concept of assumed identities, “Identity is a matter of design. People like to play with characters and pretend to be someone else.”

Malkmus’ lyrics for the song itself are a clever collection of modern-day catchphrases, thrown out in loose disassociation and reassociation under new shared contexts as if in stream-of-conscious social media/stream surfing, “High churn rate enemy of risk/I call dibs on the sax in abandoned jazzland/ I’m praying for a multiverse / It’s a cherry idea just refuse to argue … Sky high on reddit kharma fly / Over Amazon wheatfields and rivers of Redbull / Drip gush drip data driven skip / To the part where the left bros parody TED Talks / Peak action top of the bill / In Blackpool come and see us shred…” It’s brilliant verse on a bed of experimental tradition, paired with new tech that toys with masks. Is it possible the title is also a pun for “shadowband?”

||| Watch: The video for “Shadowbanned”