Studio 52 is a community artist space located in the heart of Allston, and is proud to support the Boston music scene and local artist community.
A few weeks back we hyped Waes, the new album from Massachusetts electronic trio usLights. We still have it in rotation here at Vanyaland HQ, and in fact, the pure white vinyl is currently sitting atop our turntable. But usLights have always been a very visual band, and the cinematic quality in which they approach musical compositions lends itself well to the art of video.
So we’re excited this week to hype their visual clip for “New Feeling”, which finds them out in torrential downpour as the seismic dream-pop track tumbles along. The video might actually be deemed offensive with Hurricane Irma barreling towards Puerto Rico and the Florida coastline, so hopefully we’re not all ashamed of hyping such a damp visual by week’s end.
“This video was originally set out with a very simple concept in mind: Tight, individual shots; black and white with minimal lighting; done,” usLights’ Gregg Kusumah-Atmadja tells Vanyaland. “But we couldn’t help snowballing the hell out of it. So we set up in our neighbor’s yard in the middle of the night (for one too many nights), pointed a couple of hoses to the sky and played our song two to three times faster than normal on the cheapest instruments we could find on craigslist.”
That’s how its done.
Kusumah-Atmadja adds: “We also did my vocal parts in Shawn’s shower. We worked closely with our friends Mike and Emily from Tri Town Productions on all of the shots and color correction and then edited it all together ourselves. It was a cold and tiring makeshift hell ride, but we’re super happy with how it all came out and would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Once they dry off, usLights play Ralph’s Diner in Worcester on November 24, Massachusetts’ true high school reunion night, but we’re told a gig closer to Boston between now and then could… spring up.