Jackson Phillips of Day Wave knows how to channel a certain mood, and bridge feelings of the past into a new way forward. And for that we’re grateful. Fresh off last month’s collaboration with Ben Grey of Dear Boy under The Birthdays moniker and last April’s acclaimed Crush EP, Day Wave returns this week with a loose and breezy indie-pop tune called “Before We Knew.” The track hit the streams yesterday (August 11) with an accompanying music video directed and edited by Jason Lester. Watch it below.
“I wrote ‘Before We Knew’ last fall after taking a long break from writing songs,” Phillips says. “When I sat down to create again, I knew I wanted to let go of my old process, I wanted to make music feel fresh for myself again… It was scary abandoning an approach that felt right in the past, but finding my footing with a new writing process was really rewarding. When I finally let go of what I thought I was supposed to be making, this song just came to me.”
The visual takes Phillips out into a desert landscape, walking through an abandoned town that feels like an apt metaphor for shedding a familiar skin en route to embracing change. The world around us endures, even in those harsh conditions, but the human constructs that we seem to value so much at any given time are always attached to expiration dates. All that remains is our true self, even moreso in relative isolation.
“With this video we liked the idea of filming it in one single shot, mirroring the stream of consciousness lyrical style of the song,” Jackson adds. “Shooting on 16mm film heightened the feeling of spontaneity, only having a couple of takes to get it right.”
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.”
More new music from Day Wave is forthcoming. In the meantime, push forward with “Before We Knew” below.