Brooklyn-based psych-pop trio Psychic Lines shares bright, bouncy track and colorful, hand-drawn video “Mind Control.” They also announce their fifth studio album SUNSET ON SUNSET due out August 23.
On “Mind Control,” Phil Jacob drew inspiration from Captain Beefheart, incorporating some of the rhythmic ideas found in The Magic Band’s music. Jacob says of the track’s lyrical content, “As with the rest of SUNSET ON SUNSET, the lyrics deal with comparing our lives to our perceptions of other people’s lives. Ultimately, if we want to be fully engaged with the world around us, we have to break these negative cycles with positive thoughts that lead to positive actions.”
The accompanying video for “Mind Control” was hand-drawn frame by frame by Kendraplex. Jacob aimed to mirror the feelings the song evokes with its visual, and shares, “I was thinking about the rotoscoping techniques used in Richard Linklater’s ‘Waking Life’ and loved Kendra’s video for ‘One at a Time’ by Garcia Peoples. I felt that an impressionistic approach of that sort might work well for this tune, since it’s all about the kinds of internal dialogues we have with ourselves, comparing our lives with what we see in the media and the assumptions we make about people in our own circles. We crafted the video with clips of the band playing bass and drums, and I used a fisheye lens to get some fun guitar and saxophone shots.”
What do you think of the Psychic Lines’ new offering, “Mind Control”?
