Today French band Phoenix have announced their latest song, “Winter Solstice,” from their upcoming album Alpha Zulu which is set for release on November 4. A standout track from the album, the song might be the band’s most moody, a melancholic rumination that gradually pulses from dark into light. It is the band’s only song that wasn’t composed together in the studio, instead created in two different continents for the first time in the band’s history. The track was built out of a long loop that the band’s members – Lauren Brancowitz, Christian Mazzalai, and Deck D’Arcy – sent to front man Thomas Mars, asking him to record a stream of consciousness, a song that loosely alludes to Phoenix classics like “Love Like A Sunset Pt. 1 and 2” and “Bankrupt,” but sounds like something new entirely.
In light with the release, the band share a music video directed by prior Ti Amo collaborator Warren Fu and Saoli Nash, who drew on the band’s German Expressionist movie influences. If “Winter Solstice” looks to fill the void that was created by the distance of the pandemic, the video faces the void head on.
“We love the slow pace and painterly compositions of early cinema. The stark simplicity of orthochromatic film and analogue techniques fit the song like a glove… if songs had hands and needed gloves.” said Fu and Nash
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