Watch: Videos from Erin Anne, Katie Alice Greer and Fime
Kevin Bronson on
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Rounding up three videos from artists who have soon-to-arrive albums: Erin Anne (Friday), Katie Alice Greer (June 24) and Fime (July 1) …
ERIN ANNE, “Typhoid Mary”
Erin Anne’s video for “Typhoid Mary,” directed by Dalton Pate, is not for the squeamish. But like most of her sophomore album, “Do Your Worst” (out Friday), it’s intense and full of layers. The follow-up to “Eve Polastri’s Last Two Brain Cells Have a Debate” and “Echo Park Vampire,” it suggests that she has succeeding in her stated goal of crafting music that is “gothic, expansive, ornate, simultaneously threatening and alluring.” Written (eerily) pre-pandemic, the song, an homage to Norwegian icon Susanne Sundfør, references the renowned asymptomatic typhoid carrier Mary Mallon, aka “Typhoid Mary.” “The lyrics came quickly once I’d had the experience of being denied $25,000 in research money on account of my identity and investments in research that centers queer experiences,” Erin Anne says. “I’m paraphrasing, but I was essentially told, ‘We do not want you representing our foundation because of who you are, despite your advisor’s repeated reminders that you are by far the best candidate for the fellowship.’ “A lot of my long-healed (or so I thought) childhood struggles with internalized homophobia and shame came bubbling up after that. It felt like I was contagious, or infectious, somehow … that my queerness was a transmissible pathogen that should be contained and suppressed. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became, and the more determined I was to be as loudly and offensively queer as possible. I figured, if these people are that sickened by me, maybe that’s a weapon I can use to get revenge.”
KATIE ALICE GREER, “Captivated”
Former Priests siren Katie Alice Greer will release her solo debut album “Barbarism” on June 24, and the dark incantation “Captivated” speaks to its experimental side. It arrives with a riveting video as the follow-up to “FITS/My Love Can’t Be” and “I Dreamt I Talked to Horses.” Says Greer: “This is a creepy song, in my mind, and I wanted to lean into that for both the production and the video’s narrative. In the video, a woman is intermittently experiencing time in reverse. She sees a plane fly overhead in a field and moments later, it flies backwards. She carries a suitcase full of money and now wonders where it came from. After experiencing time in reverse, she questions whether or not her experiences ever happened at all; she wonders whether she is in the present moment, caught in a daydream or a memory. In the video, we are experiencing her mind’s chopped and shuffled versions of both, none of what she’s seeing or remembering (wandering at night, a woman in a yellow skirt, a gloved hand reaching for her in the field) makes any sense to her anymore. She is losing her sense of reality, and simultaneously trying to piece it back together with the few and unreliable clues she has left.”
FIME, “Not for Nothing”
The follow-up to “White Collar Gold,” “Not for Nothing” is the latest from Fime’s forthcoming album “Sweeter Memory,” out July 1. The quartet — Beto Brakmo, Maxine Garcia, Eric Promani and Scott Leahy — made the album with producer-engineer Melina Duterte of Jay Som (for whom they had comprised the backing band). The new single, penned by Garcia, capsulizes the anguish and burnout she felt working for a nonprofit. It’s also a reminder to be a friend. “Don’t don’t don’t pull back the curtains / No I won’t won’t won’t / Tell you nothing till I’m certain / That the girl you knew, the friend you had / The pull-out couch when it all went bad / The speech you made when you raised your glass / It’s not for nothing.” The straightforward performance video was filmed by Jason Hanan.
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