‘Restless Life’ by The Parlor | New Album, ‘You Are Love And I Am You’
Exclusive video premiere of ‘Restless Life’ by the neo-psychedelic dream-pop The Parlor, taken from the latest album, ‘You Are Love And I Am You’.
A project by husband and wife: Eric Krans and Jen O’Connor, named after a room in the 19th century farmhouse where they live, farm, and create. The multi-instrumentalist, producer-composers make immersive art-pop soundscapes through which they share their lived experience.
‘You Are Love And I Am You’ is a psychedelic indie-dream-pop record about the ecstasy of catharsis. It’s a response to The Parlor’s most recent album; the 2018 album ‘Kiku’ which chronicled the experience of grief and loss. Meant to be listened to as an album, front to back. Loud, with artwork in hand. With influences from The Mamas and the Papas, Tame Impala, Broadcast, Fleetwood Mac, Warpaint, Mazzy Star, Cocteau Twins, Trip Hop, New Wave, anti-folk, George Harrison, Velvet Underground, Khruangbin, Grimes, Cults, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. It plays in a loop, like an ouroboros. The cycle of birth and death.
“Things got gloomy for us while touring on the ‘Kiku’ record. Playing songs about trauma on a nightly basis, and the grueling nature of touring just sort of wore us down. Together these experiences ushered us deeper down a dark tapering claustrophobic tunnel with only a pinhole exit. The pandemic left us alone together and added its own additional sufferings, triggers, and fears. We decided the only way out was through. And we squeezed through somehow, by sharing our deepest vulnerabilities with each other -thanks to meditative practice, and the quiet of having nothing to do -no obligations or hamster wheels to distract. Just us experiencing the purity of the heaviness and realizing there was wisdom to be found in the depths.” The Parlor
Today we are premiering video for their ‘Restless Life’ from the record.
“We wrote and recorded this track early on in the Pandemic. It started out as a guitar song that Eric wrote for his project Bozenkill, and spent some time as a piano piece for John John the Baptist. We started fleshing it out, inspired by the meditativeness of Sigur Ros, Enya, and Eno and turned it into a Parlor song… full of longing for human connection -even the complicated kind that comes with normal everyday life. It’s a love song to simplicity. To slowing down. To listening. To hearing how everything relates. To knowing we are enough as we are. And to fully accepting both life and death // the presence of death we all felt during that time // and the vibrancy that can accompany death when we are open to facing it. The music video for ‘Restless Life’ was created using 8mm film footage of Jen’s family that she found while cleaning out her Grandmother’s condo who passed away during the pandemic. We knew we wanted to use the footage to create a video for one of the tracks off our new album, but we weren’t sure which one. When we saw Jen’s Grandfather standing next to a boat named Restless, it was destined to be this one. Of all the folks in this video, there aren’t many that remain on this earthly plane. This video is dedicated to all the ones who have passed on, and the ones that still remain.” The Parlor
until the restless life / until the restless life ends / until the clouds come down / until we hit the ground and / until the siren sounds / until the money’s found / until my searching stalls / and I forgive you all / until defenses fall / until you bear my pall / the birds and the bees take us / the leaves on the trees take us / the sun and the rain take us / the look in your eyes take us / forget you all take us / find myself take us / until the restless life / until the restless life ends /
The Parlor Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube
