A Super Furry Animal-done-gone-solo by the name of Gruff Rhys kicks off his North American tour in a few short weeks, and today he’s giving us a taste of what’s to come in a new video for “Selfies In The Sunset”. Whether or not this gives fans free rein to get selfie-mad with the Welsh musician when he comes to town is anyone’s guess, but we’ll find out for sure October 8 at Great Scott.
“Selfies In The Sunset” is the latest off Rhys’ recent album Babelsberg, and it features guest singer Lily Cole. The video, directed and animated by Ewan Jones Morris, has a nice apocalyptic theme that’s run rampant in these crazy days we call 2018.
“A couple of years ago I noticed some smiling, healthy looking young people taking selfies in front of a particularly spectacular sunset, I turned around to walk away only to see another sunset in front of me,” Rhys says of the song. “I realized the first sunset was just the glow looming above a chemical plant. Still, the selfies would have looked like they were taken in California. (We weren’t in California). It got me thinking about armageddon. Maybe people will be taking selfies till the very end. They’ll be pretty spectacular and will feature the golden colors of the sunset. With the acceleration of climate change maybe it is the end. A slow painful process not an event.”
Of course, if these are the end times (spoiler alert: they are), then Rhys has no issues with self-documentation. It’ll be all that’s left when the martians stumble on our planetary rubble a cosmic century from now.
“This isn’t a judgmental song about selfies — selfies aren’t the problem,” Rhys admits. “They bring joy into this precarious life. It’s just a really sad song.”
Gruff Rhys 2018 North American Dates:
October 5 – Montreal, QUE – Bar Le Ritz
October 6 – Toronto, ONT – The Garrison
October 8 – Boston, MA – Great Scott
October 9 – Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade
October 10 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
October 11 – Washington, DC – DC9
October 12 – Pittsburgh, PA – Funhouse @ Mr. Smalls
October 13 – Columbus, OH – Ace Of Cups
October 14 – Chicago, IL – 1 st Ward at Chop Shop
October 16 – Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Center
October 19 – Vancouver, BC – The Fox Cabaret
October 20 – Seattle, WA – Barboza
October 21 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir
October 23 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel
October 24 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo