Portland, Oregon post-punk group Help are releasing their new video, “Sound and Vision,” from their upcoming debut album, 2053.
The video features the band going wild in a tarped backyard, smashing instruments, and really letting loose.
“We wanted to make a music video but hadn’t been in the same space for a year or so. Boone came back from Alaska to Portland, where Ryan and I were, so we put together what we were able to on short notice,” drummer Bim Ditson says.
“This ended up being a bunch of tarps I had from when I put a new roof on my mom’s house and it had started raining right as we finished removing the shingles. Long story short, I own some really big tarps. Our friend Craig is a video guy and pretty down for whatever, so he offered up his backyard and his talents. It’s pretty incoherent anti-narrative shit, like modern life.”
Guitarist and vocalist Ryan Neighbors adds that they didn’t have a strong concept going in, but just wanted to parody what their live shows are like.
“The funniest part was how quiet our playback track was,” Neighbors says. “The second Bim started hitting the drums; we couldn’t hear anything, so we just hoped we were lining up with the track. Some parts of the yard were visible from the street, so Boone recalls a couple walking by, seeing him blasting around with his bass on backwards. It was a really fun day and a reminder that you can accomplish anything even if you don’t put your mind to it.”
The album comes out this March as a followup to Help’s self-titled debut EP, released in 2019. The new record is filled with jolting slices of post-punk menace, allowing the songs to build upon themselves before being destroyed in a sort of existential cleansing. The album explores themes around outrage, religious scorn, self-identity, and the state of the world today.
Watch the video for “Sound and Vision” here:
For more from Help, find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, and their official website.
Photo courtesy of Help
