Video premiere: Boy Deluxe, ‘So Slow’

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Boy Deluxe (Photo by Vianne Robitaille)

In 2017, Seattle duo Ever So Android picked up stakes and moved to Los Angeles, ingratiating themselves in the local scene with their menacing electro-rock. This year, the duo — Drew Murray and Hope Simpson (aka True Murra and Hope S) — cut the cord entirely, adopting the new name Boy Deluxe and pushing their sound incrementally from neo-industrial to dark noise-pop.

“Ever So Android was what we thought we should be,” Hope S says. “Boy Deluxe is exactly who we are. Trying to ‘do the right things’ led to confusion and a loss of identity. The turning point came when we accepted that writing fulfilling music came alongside self-understanding. The more we learned about ourselves and quit caring what everybody thought, the more we loved our art.”

“So Slow,” officially out on Friday, is the fifth single since the duo closed the books on Ever So Android late last year, although the song was started before that. “‘So Slow’ was written early 2019 in our apartment on Sunset while we were still Ever So Android,” Hope says. “I think True had actually written the music to this song and we sat on it for a while, unsure how to finish it. There was a big difference between this track and what we had traditionally written in ESA and to be honest, it paved the way for what became Boy Deluxe. We called up a couple of our friends to give us feedback on what we had and ended up digging in really deep into the vocals. Changed the delivery completely, added a thousand harmonies and all of a sudden we felt like we had something real.”

Mixed by Gabe Pressman and mastered by John Greenham, “So Slow” oozes with Murra’s glitchy, buzzy production while Hope comes out of its forbidding underbelly to sensuously deliver the lyrical hook: “I’d rather be with you than anybody else.”

The video was directed by Arden Fisher and edited by Fre Pacheco. “Since we made this video during the pandemic, we had to be a little more creative on how to pursue it,” Hope ssays. “We’ve worked with Fisher and Pacheco before, so we all felt comfortable working together and keeping it simple. And what’s simpler than running around your neighborhood like a weirdo?”

||| Watch: The video for “So Slow”

||| Also: Watch the video for “Ashes”

||| Also: Stream “Creeps” and “Beginning of the End”