Now that it’s gone
and the moon is on
There’s no signs of life
Just a flame in the dark
Philadelphia’s Korine, the duo of Morgy Ramone and Trey Frye, piece together brittle memories and future anxiety with the precision of jewel thieves. Their synths don’t shimmer so much as blink like warning lights through late-night fog. There’s a warmth within their chill, a pulse that thrums beneath the sleek exterior, invoking the electric starkness of contemporary darkwave, the poignant longing and sincerity of dreampop luminaries, and the exhilarating unease of classic post-punk and synthpop.
Blue Star, their latest cut, walks headfirst into that liminal dusk, equal parts lament and lifeline. The track moves like a solitary figure pacing a dim city street, smoke curling from the past, neon signs hissing overhead. Ramone’s ethereal vocals ache and stretch with quiet desperation, while Frye’s synths stutter, sparkle, and push. It’s citipop strained through cracked glass: beautiful, brittle, and just barely holding form.
Blue Star is less a love song than a postmortem; an excavation of ache where identity dissolves under the weight of memory and distance. The lyrics speak in fragments, half-lit thoughts looped in loss, circling a presence long gone but never fully erased. Pain, relentless and precise, becomes the only constant. Rather than build toward climax, the chorus curls inwards in an echo chamber of emotion wrapped in restraint. With Blue Star, Korine offer a track moves like the last slow dance at the end of the world, a final heartbeat against the void.
The video, directed by Kelli McGuire, conjures a different kind of collapse. A young woman, pulled by some unseen gravity, turns the blue star into her muse. Obsessively, she builds a fractured cosmos of celestial bodies, each hand-made planet and drifting asteroid carrying the weight of some half-remembered ache. Shot with lo-fi tenderness, the 90s-style cinematic video leans less on story and more on sensation; a slow, meandering meditation on the act of creation. Memories are molded and remade, lit by the dim glow of longing, then propelled into overdrive by obsession. Absence expands, filling every frame, until it forms a fragile cosmos of its own: delicate, dented, and endlessly spinning.
Watch the video for “Blue Star” below:
Listen to Blue Star below and pre-order A Flame In The Dark on vinyl here.
Korine is currently on tour throughout the US. Catch them live on the following dates and purchase your tickets here.
- 4.26 Minneapolis MN – Cloudland
4.28 Kansas City MO – Record Bar
4.29 Denver CO – Hi Dive
4.30 Salt Lake City UT – International
5.02 Seattle WA – Central Saloon
5.03 Portland OR – Mississippi Studios
5.05 Sacramento CA – Starlet Room
5.06 San Francisco CA – Bottom of the Hill
5.07 Los Angeles CA – Echo
5.08 Santa Ana CA – Constellation Room
5.09 San Diego CA – Voodoo Room
5.10 Phoenix AZ – Valley Bar
5.12 Denton TX – Rubber Gloves
5.13 Austin TX – Empire Control Room
5.14 New Orleans LA – Siberia
5.15 Tampa FL – New World Music Hall
5.16 Orlando FL – Will’s Pub
5.17 Atlanta GA – 529
5.18 Raleigh NC – Pour House
5.19 Washington DC – Song Byrd
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