After years being trapped under the dystopian nightmare, Peter Endall calls “the suburban spell,” the titular Melbourne synthpop project Suburban Spell has unleashed a fantastic new video for their new single, “Control”, a track off their album Split Levels.
“Control” is driving, propulsive, and unfiltered, examining the experience of “signing up to a life of suburbia at an early age, only to realise many years later that the suburban dream is all a fabrication,” Endall adds that they also explore the theme of “how men respond to domestic servitude.”
With this musical project, Endall, the former keyboardist for Australian 80s synthpop band Schizo Scherzo, returns to songwriting, producing and creating music, channeling Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Ultravox with hints of dirty shoegaze.
“It’s an exploration of the everyday, with all of its hidden layers peeled back,” he explains. “Themes of modern politics, domestic violence, human fragility, and quiet desperation speak to all our uncomfortable desires, quiet shames, and joyous revelations.”
The video, a collaboration with photographer Andy Gentry and video artist Chip Wardale, is a dazzling homage to architecture and the lost ideals of Futurism – particularly through the lens of the minimalist simplicity of Brutalism.
“The video came about partly because of my love of Brutalist Architecture, and the aesthetic just seemed to fit within the context of the song.”
Watch the video for “Control” below:
Split Levels was written and recorded quite quickly over the last fourteen months, although the tracks reveal a deft hand of songwriting assuredness that can only come with life experience. Split Levels is out on February 1st, 2022,
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