Last month, Lael Neale announced her new album Altogether Stranger and released the magnificent single "Tell Me How To Be Here." Today, she's back with "Down On The Freeway."
Whereas "Tell Me How To Be Here" centered on confusion and disorientation, "Down On The Freeway" boasts certainty: "I've seen the sky, I know what it means to fly away/ I've seen the night, I know what it means to lie awake/ I've seen the dawn, I know what it means to start again." Here's what she said about it:
This song is specific to Los Angeles. The drum machine really wrote the song. It conjures the endless sea of cars. Moving, bottlenecked, bumper to bumper. I'm always amazed that so many of us have somewhere to go. The video appeared in my mind's eye as soon as we recorded the song. I saw that cars on the freeway are like people walking in a fashion show, pacing back and forth. The fashion show is the epitome of movement going nowhere. The video is a part of a larger story being told by the album and accompanying film, in which my character is an alien bewildered by the modern way of life on Earth. The QR code I ingest at the end of this video suggests that humanity is caught up in an escapist fantasy of techno-consumerism.
Watch below.
Altogether Stranger is out 5/2 via Sub Pop.
