Moses Sumney – “Virile” Video

Moses Sumney – “Virile” Video

Back in 2017, the astral-soul art-rocker Moses Sumney, who had already made a name for himself with some exciting EPs, released the enormously promising debut album Aromanticism. Today, Sumney announces that he will follow it up early next year with a double album. Sumney will release the new effort græ in two installments next year. The first part of græ will be out digitally in February, with the second part coming in May. (The full thing will be available physically when Sumney releases that second installment.)

This is already looking like a huge, ambitious project, and that’s before we even get to first single “Virile” or its video, which Sumney has shared this morning. “Virile” is a stirring, crashing piece of work. Over a roiling landscape of synths, strings, and crashing drums, Sumney sings hard about the idea of masculinity, giving his falsetto a serious workout. It sounds something like Terence Trent D’Arby fronting Wild Beasts. It’s awesome.

The song’s video is also awesome. Sumney directs it himself, and it’s his first time taking on that job. He knows what he’s doing. Sumney spends most of the video dancing, posing, and shadowboxing his way around a freezing meat locker. He’s shirtless and glistening, wearing enormous kung-fu pants. It’s a hell of an image, and that’s only partly because Sumney is objectively a ridiculously good-looking man. Later on, there are some stunning cinematic drone shots and a whole lot of ladybugs, who do not usually look as creepy as they do in this video. Of the clip, Sumney says, “In a post-human world, the last remaining man is caught between Beauty and Brutality’s battle to dominate the earth and his body.”

There will be plenty of time to interpret all this, to puzzle out what it all means. But even on first glance, it’s a real sensory experience. You can watch the video and check out the græ tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:

Part One:
01 “Insula”
02 “Cut Me”
03 “In Bloom”
04 “Virile”
05 “Conveyor”
06 “boxes”
07 “Gagarin”
08 “jill/jack”
09 “Colouour”
10 “also also also and and and”
11 “Neither/Nor”
12 “Polly”

Part Two:
13 “Two Dogs”
14 “Bystanders”
15 “Me In 20 Years”
16 “Keeps Me Alive”
17 “Lucky Me”
18 “and so I come to isolation”
19 “Bless Me”
20 “before you go”

græ part one is out in February, and the full album is coming 5/15 via Jagjaguwar.

more from New Music