Kevin Bronson on August 18th, 2021

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During our recent bout with that thing that’s going around, we watched a bunch of videos multiple times. Here are four of them — courtesy of Day Wave, Gold Star, Gal Musette and Steady Holiday.

DAY WAVE, “Before We Knew”

A year after the release of the “Crush” EP, Jackson Phillips is back with the new Day Wave single “Before We Knew,” which sees him “finding my footing with a new writing process,” he says. It’s still vintage Day Wave guitar-pop, brought to life here in the beautiful video directed by Jason Lester. “With this video we liked the idea of filming it in one single shot, mirroring the stream-of-consciousness lyrical style of the song,” Phillips says. Adds Lester: “When Jackson reached out with this song, I was immediately engaged by the idea of making a simple and emotionally direct video for it. Shooting on 16mm film in one long take amidst the decaying buildings of an abandoned farm in Lancaster evoked a sense of nostalgia for a lost time and a fluid interplay between past and present.”

GOLD STAR, “Headlights U.S.A.”

You can feel the road beneath your wheels in Roman Koval’s video for “Headlights U.S.A.,” the title track to the EP Gold Star will release on Sept. 3. Koval shot the video on 16mm film at night as he was driven around Koreatown in the back of a truck — although the inspiration for the song can be found thousands of miles away. “On the outskirts of Baltimore there is a dive bar with old neon signs advertising ‘Headlights USA,’” Gold Star’s Marlon Rabenreither says. “I don’t think anyone there really knew where it came from or exactly what it meant. The song began as a three-chord ‘Talkin’ Blues,’ a folk song for the interstates and strip malls, the big-rigs and churches with billboards for drugstores, panic attacks and salvation. Everything we saw passing by from a highway somewhere in America, set to arpeggios on an MS-20 and an MPC loop.”

GAL MUSETTE, “Ghost”

The follow-up to “Summertime,” “Ghost” is the new single from Gal Musette, aka Orange Countian Grace Freeman. The heart-rending tune blossoms 3 1/2 minutes in when indie band Coma Culture joins in — and it’s brought to life poignantly in director Alissa Lise Wyle’s video. Ari Fernandez is the dancer and choreographer. October will bring the release of Gal Musette’s debut album “Backwards Lullaby.” (See her at the Hotel Café on Sept. 29.)

STEADY HOLIDAY, “Love Me 2”

“Love Me When I Go to Sleep” is the oh-so-tender moment on Steady Holiday’s oh-so-good third album, “Take the Corners Gently.” You should watch that video first (c’mon, it’s only 2 minutes) before segueing to “Love Me 2,” which is mastermind Dre Babinski’s alternate version. “The original song is about love and mortality, and how they inevitably intersect,” she says. “As much as I love the song, I’m not always interested in going to that place, especially during live performances. So I made a more raucous version for times when I want to enjoy the song at face value.” She’s releasing it as a flexi single (it comes with coffee). As for the video of her going nuts in the garage, Brijesh Pandya plays drums on the song.