Here I am, here I am, here I am missing you again
Longing rarely arrives alone. It drags its little entourage with it: memory, mischief, ritual, repetition, the strange compulsion to go out anyway and let the night hold what daylight cannot. Child of Night, the Columbus and New York City-based dark electronic duo of John and Niabi, understands that pull well on “Old Moons,” the second single from their forthcoming LP Conspiracy, due May 15, 2026. Out April 17, the track turns romantic desolation into something communal and faintly absurd, a song about absence and ache that still makes room for bright lights, red cups, sequins, and the half-delirious fellowship of karaoke.
Following their 2021 debut, The Walls At Dawn, Child of Night continue to refine their strain of post-punk, darkwave, and synthpop with a sharp instinct for atmosphere and a punkish sense of play. You can hear echoes of Automelodi, Lust for Youth, Boy Harsher, Nuovo Testamento, and Chris & Cosey in their palette, but “Old Moons” has its own after-hours chemistry. The song carries those sleek 1980s-tinted new wave and synthwave tones with a cool, heart-bruised poise, while the vocals ache with retro desire. The gaps between the synth lines, drum hits, and vocal phrases give the song a delicious sense of space, the kind that practically invites a microphone in hand and a little theatrical overcommitment. It has the mood of the cast of Drive wandering into a karaoke bar instead of confronting their troubles directly, trading stoic silence for neon confession.
Lyrically, “Old Moons” circles grief as a season without end. Time keeps moving, rain turns to snow, grasses yellow, new moons come and go, and still the missing person never returns. The refrain lands with blunt force: “Here I am…missing you again.” Yet the song never collapses under its own sadness. It keeps going, keeps showing up, keeps singing through the void. That friction between emotional heaviness and the will to carry on gives the track its pulse.
That same push and pull shapes the video, directed, filmed, edited, and photographed by Alice Teeple. “The concept was ‘What about a bunch of friends doing karaoke?’” John says. Niabi pushes it further: “But a little Lynchian, inching towards fun/absurd.” Speaking about the early conversations with Teeple, Niabi recalls: “When I was talking with Alice, who shot our music video, her initial thoughts on the concept were, I think, intrigued. She was like, ‘This is so fun and unusual and kind of goofy,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, why zig when you can zag?’”
That instinct to zag gives the clip its charm. “And I think that’s what makes this music video different,” Niabi continues. “Here we were embracing quirk, fun, joy and grief, sharing with immediacy this moment in time. We are riding the line crossing over into that dark place where you don’t want to go but because you are emotionally so down, you do, and it’s really hard to explain how dark it is, but you are still trying to carry on.” That may be the most precise description of “Old Moons” possible: a song and video poised between emotional collapse and collective release, where silliness becomes survival and performance becomes a way of keeping despair from swallowing the room whole.
The clip opens with a striking title card set against the familiar postcard view of Chureito Pagoda and Mount Fuji, a dreamy false dawn that gives way to the very real geography of downtown Manhattan after dark. From there, the video slips into Chinatown and the surrounding streets, tracing stairwells, subway platforms, neon signs, crowded corners, and glowing side streets strung with warm lights. Teeple lingers on the neighborhood’s texture: the blue-and-red Welcome to Chinatown sign, weathered storefronts, old signage, and the blur of pedestrians and traffic moving through the night like pieces of a shared hallucination.
Inside, the action settles into a richly patterned karaoke room dressed in red-and-gold wallpaper, tufted benches, marble tables, and plastic cups catching the low light. Child of Night performs in close-up beneath an amber glow, while elsewhere the singer appears before a red curtain in a silver sequined dress, all bruised cabaret glamour and downtown longing. Friends gather, pass microphones, applaud from their tables, laugh mid-song, drink, dance, and lean into the kind of warm, chaotic intimacy only the right room can produce. The vibe is playful, but never weightless; even at its most convivial, the video keeps one foot near the precipice.
Teeple gives equal attention to the night’s incidental magic. There is Niabi roaming the street with sparklers in hand like a one-woman procession; the melancholy geometry of subway corridors and station platforms; roller skaters slicing down a narrow hallway under red lights and framed posters; John in his sunglasses crooning into a microphone; a small dog tucked in someone’s arms; partygoers clapping along as if the room itself were willing everyone forward. The result feels like a love letter to urban nightlife in all its tenderness, tackiness, theatricality, and human heat, a pocket diary of people making meaning together beneath the old moons.
Watch the video for Old Moons below:
Listen to Old Moons and its remix by Kiss of the Whip below, and order here.
Child of Night have previously shared bills with Hallows, Kiss of the Whip, and Milliken Chamber, and will tour the U.S. in summer 2026 in support of Conspiracy.
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