Tei Shi and Blood Orange have shared the music video for their newly announced track “Even If It Hurts.” It will also be featured on Tei Shi’s upcoming album La Linda, set for a Nov. 15th release via Downtown Records. The song was produced by Dev Hynes and Noah Breakfast. Hynes also stars in the video which also features styling from some of the most exciting new designers. Shi discussed the new song in a press release, stating “The concept is really the realization and acceptance that pain is a natural consequence of love. It’s a duet about the ways in which we make ourselves vulnerable to those we love, sometimes at a high cost.”
Its music video was directed by Cara Stricker. “I wanted to capture the romantic and melancholic elements of the song but put them in a world that feels removed from the every day, its own little odd paradise where Dev and I existed parallel to one another but never really together,” sais Shi. Stricker then added “I wanted to explore the iconography of love in art history through a modern yet romantic lens. Creating stillness and emotive movement to reflect the physical or emotional space in love… vulnerability, numbing immersion, knowing the truth, becoming closer, fighting for it, letting them in…even if it hurts. It’s a conversation between opposing perspectives in a relationship.”
La Linda will include 10-tracks, including the previously released singles “A Kiss Goodbye” and “Red Light.” It follows her debut album Crawl Space, released in 2017. “For me this album is about letting go of the past and moving willingly into the future,” Tei Shi says. “I hope it can give people a glimpse of something beautiful, and help them look out into the world in a more loving and intuitive way.”