The new single called “Reeling” by New York-based band Erostratus is a lot of things:
It’s apologetic. Grappling with a period during which when lead singer Ben Workman worked nights and his live-in girlfriend worked days, forcing them to never see one another, he addresses disparity and sorrow in a fluid-yet-mechanical endeavor.
It’s explorative – in both theme and music. Filled with edgy, complex arrangements comprised of thrumming bass, precision drumming, and fingerpicked guitars, Erostratus experiments with stories en masse, mashing together a collection of experiences and people into something cohesive and compelling.
At its epicenter, however, “Reeling” is just a little bit of a love song. It’s about the city, stitching together a series of vignettes and ideas into something entirely cohesive: a symphony of NYC’s pieces interlocked and the feeling of being enamored with – and exhausted by – the city at night.
A collective rich in experimentation and collaboration, Erostratus spent three days literally living in a studio piecing together their upcoming full-length. Produced and engineered by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile) at the since-defunct Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, and mastered by Greg Calbi (Paul Simon, Tame Impala, Fleet Foxes), their new album acts as the soundtrack to a nighttime walk through the dark corridors of New York City, exploring the streets as it simultaneously examines people and places, themes and dreams and otherworldly spaces.
Today Glide is excited to offer up an exclusive premiere of the video for “Reeling”. The song takes the listener down the rabbit hole with a sound that feels dreamy and progressive at once. The band blends infectious lyrics and vocals with frequent time changes, delightfully frantic drumming, and euphoric guitar solos as they catapult through a sonic landscape.
Talking about how the song and its video came to fruition, guitarist and vocalist Ben Workman has this to say:
“The initial spark for Reeling was this anxious, slightly spooky, finger-picked guitar riff I wrote on my acoustic; I brought it into rehearsal and we started adding new parts and a lot of progressive rock style dynamic shifts. We played it as an instrumental closer at a couple shows – there’s an intense, crumbling breakdown at the end with some wild, high-register bass work which is Ed’s bread and butter – and people really responded to it. Before we recorded it, our producer John Agnello helped us with a couple arrangement tweaks – including bringing that snare hit into the verses (which really propelled the feel of the song and is now Luke’s favorite thing to play).
As for the music video, the song is kind of about walking around the city in the middle of the night, so we knew we wanted something dark involving architecture, but we didn’t have any specific concepts in mind. We had seen some of Joe Presser’s surreal animation and arranged to meet with him about doing a video. I had been getting into Precisionism, this art style from the 20’s-30’s that featured a lot of urban and industrial landscapes, and we referenced some of that as a starting point, along with the night-city theme, but Joe just took it from there – he’s really talented and definitely exceeded our expectations. We love how it turned out – it’s one of our best songs; both a dense variety piece which showcases many of our favorite moves and also a super accessible tune with some nice hooks.”
LISTEN:
