Following a brilliant performance last night in Brooklyn during a sold-out concert with Boy Harsher, Olivia Neutron John has unveiled the spiraling RGB lo-fi VHS video for “Beguine”, a track featured on ONJ’s self-titled full-length debut album.
The song is slow, circling, meandering foray into no-wave minimalism, conjuring acid flashbacks to the experimentalism of Lydia Lunch’s Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, or Malaria! with a creeping bass and synth-infused hangover.
There are even subtle traces of bass and synth interplay reminiscent of the avant-garde reveries of Tuxedo Moon, a new direction for this latest output—ONJ’s first release in five years since 2014′s INJURY TRAIN AND I‘M NEVER GETTING OFFIT b/w VULNERABILITY EP.
Unlike the clear visuals of the album’s previous video for “March”, whose red and blue lights alternate laterally with their seductive shadowplay, the video for “Beguine” adds the third primary color green to the mix, highlighting the distorted visuals where each pixel is in purposeful disarray, not unlike A. Nasty’s measured yet unhinged vocals.
Watch the video for “Beguine” below, a song that takes its title from the Jazz era dance of Caribbean origin, made famous by the pirouettes of Fred Astaire to a song written by Cole Porter:
Oliva Neutron John’s self-titled debut LP is out now on infamous DC label Sister Polygon Records—a label run by brilliant post-punk act Priests. Altogether the album is bold, in content, and runtime, as it asserts itself as a long play, despite featuring only five tracks.
Speaking of DC, the ONJ debut record gained notoriety earlier this year in March, as punk veteran and music aficionado Henry Rollins featured it on his KCRW radio show, commenting on how it was one of the best record covers he has ever seen, and also stating he is “so glad Anna is back and doing more music”.
And so are we.
Find Oliva Neutron-John on tour with Boy Harsher throughout the Autumn, and order ONJ’s debut LP Here.
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