San Francisco transplants slash “alternative-folk” musicians Thao and The Get Down Stay Down are back with something to feast the ears and eyes on. In wake of the band’s latest record, the 2016-released A Man Alive, Thao and Co. premiered a groovy, new music video for the track “Meticulous Bird”.
The video, like the track, is an electrified take on this generation’s approach and appreciation for music. While the song itself tends towards more electronica themes, and hints at groups like YACHT and Brazilian Girls, there is something intrinsically signature in Thao and The Get Down Stay Down’s shift in the musical weather.
Synthesizers and galactic-like voices compliment Thao’s midnight takeover of everyone’s local grocery store. Thao Nguyen is filmed dancing eratically through aisles (by the fish, the oranges…and all), and to the beat of crisp, grounding drums: the strong drums below a menage of clashing sounds in Meticulous Bird offer listeners a sense of solidarity and triumph. The juxtaposition of consistency with chaos mirrors Ngyun’s takeover of a relatively normal place (i.e. the supermarket). What is revealed through the mash-up of one part produce section, one part nightclub is an understanding that we have the power to refigure lines previously drawn within society’s “appropriate designations”.
Thao Nguyen adds, in a recent interview with NPR, in support of her latest video and the accompanied song Meticulous Bird, “My ongoing hope for ‘Meticulous Bird’ is that a survivor of any kind would hear it and want to use it: to celebrate their sovereignty, to remind themselves of their power, to warn those who would exploit the vulnerabilities of others that such trespasses against the humanity of one or many will never go unanswered.”
Thao Nguyen is a survivor, and she may save us all during our next end-of-the-day slump down the grocery store aisles: in search of something more, more than instant mac-and-cheese.
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