Tag: New Wolves

With its New Single “Unselected” New Wolves Evokes the Unease and Uncertainty at the Current Rising of Authoritarianism in the World

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New Wolves, photo courtesy the artist

The latest New Wolves single “Unselected” seems far too poignant for the current moment with the utter defeat of Labour in the recent UK elections as the lyrics deal with the current rise of the right wing in that country and everywhere, really. The song is melancholy but not despairing. Its beats sound weary but still strong. The distorted synth melody ascends and resolves in a way suggesting uncertainty commensurate with the general mood in the world of late for those who have the luxury of merely feeling uncertain but there is a quality to the sound of the song that gives the impression of bracing for the blows to come regardless of how much you think you’ve prepared to weather the coming storm when during the reign of authoritarian regimes you can become, in a word, unselected for the benefits of citizenship and being part of society. By casting the layers of melody and rhythm in this way New Wolves puts the mood of the song into an aspect of the hazy and dreamlike as though it’s something from which we might one day awake and cast off the dire spirit. It offers no hopeful bravado but also doesn’t offer up hard, fatalistic realism. Could the mood be described as cautious ambivalence? However it might be characterized, it’s an interesting mix of moods and sounds and captures accurately how many of us feel in this current moment as the world seems to be wending in a scary direction. Listen to “Unselected” on Soundcloud and follow New Wolves at the links below. Look for a full length album from the band in 2020.

soundcloud.com/new-wolves
twitter.com/wolves_new

New Wolves’ “Influencer” and its Eye-Catching Animated Collage Video Call Into Question the Performative Aspects of Social Media Culture

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New Wolves, photo courtesy the artist

The music video for New Wolves’ new single “Influencer” gives now obvious clues about whether the song is a commentary on the socio-cultural phenomenon of the “influencer.” It’s a series of adventures in collage and it introduces an ever-changing array of imagery interacting and evolving before returning to an early image of a bird humanoid stepping out of the fray of the jungle of messaging and visuals that it had stepped into and strolled through. The chill pop song with nicely subtle textures and an incandescent synth line has lyrics more than hinting at the pressures involved with being an influencer and the constant need to provide content and preferably from one’s own life so that one turns one’s individual experiences and preferences into a commodity to present and to be consumed on the regular. Without explicitly saying so, New Wolves perhaps suggest that that is, on some level, the nature of social media entirely in which we present a mediated experience all the time in a way we did not before its existence. In the song’s soothing yet melancholic town we hear some empathy for the state of things but also a yearning to escape and even entirely derail the process of making out psyches a consumer product to be monetized by corporations. Watch the video on YouTube and follow New Wolves at the links provided.

soundcloud.com/new-wolves
open.spotify.com/artist/2KOqtDxp2na3uUfP37R7VK
twitter.com/wolves_new