Porches – “Be Apart” Video

Porches – “Be Apart” Video

True to its name, Pool sounds like it was recorded entirely underwater. It wasn’t — instruments and water don’t mix, duh! — but the confines of a New York City apartment, where it was recorded, can feel just as suffocating. Under the water, just like when you’re stuck at home, everything moves slower. And, once you get out to take a breath or venture outside of your building, you’re all bleary-eyed and red. Approach Porches’ new album with that same bewildering feeling in mind — a far cry from the crisp and scratchy Slow Dance In The Cosmos — and it all starts to click. “Hour” and the two precursor singles eased us into this waterlogged world, and “Be Apart” assumes that you’re already fully submerged.

The second song we’ve heard from Porches’ Domino debut just premiered on Beats 1 by way of Zane Lowe, a good indication of the larger audience that Aaron Maine is starting to play to at this point, and the song itself feels appropriately immersive and enticing. It kicks off with a throbbing pulse that carries through to the rest of the track, sharp pinpricks that don’t seem to leave a mark. Maine and Greta Kline duet on the chorus: “I want to be apart of it all,” they sing, slightly trailing each other, a phrase that if it weren’t spelled right out in the title would offer some ambiguity. “A part,” like you want to be a part of the rest of the world? Or “apart,” like you’d do anything to get away from it all? The passivity of the second verse tips the scale over to the latter (“I’ll wait for it to come/ I am so patient/ And when it really does/ I’ll let it have me whole”), but that struggle between inclusion and isolation is a theme that pops up over Pool as a whole. Listen and watch the song’s Daniel Brereton-directed video below.

Pool is out 2/5 via Domino.

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