Kevin Bronson on October 3rd, 2023

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Director Shane McKenzie’s stylized, glitched-out video for “Punctuation” offers a fitting introduction to L.A duo Escape Artist Lovers, who exude the practiced cool of underground artists down through history.

The collaborators on the new project, which debuted in August with the jarring duet “Hey Motherf*cker,” are Rain Phoenix and Kirk Hellie. The latter was a writer, producer and player on Phoenix’s 2019 album, “River,” and they’ve now formalized the relationship as Escape Artist Lovers.

“Punctuation” is reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s melodic nonchalance, pretty but not cloying.

Says Phoenix, without commas, periods, colons, semicolons, ellipses or exclamation points: “When I talk to myself I don’t use punctuation I’m not currently a fan of using it in a sentence either I don’t want to be told where to pause or get excited I want to feel my way through the words.”

Oh, that last period is ours, y’know, because.

||| Watch: The videos for “Punctuation” and “Hey Motherf*cker”