The video for the Brooklyn dream-psych artist’s summer single is a sweet stroll through a hazy dreamscape with a red rubber companion
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Whether due to timing (the impending end of the city’s sexiest season) or recent news (the death of Olivia Newton John), “Summer Nights” from Grease has been stuck in my head for days.
There’s nothing more simultaneously invigorating and heartbreaking than a summer romance—or even friendship—after all. It’s intense, but temporary. Sweet, but fleeting. An experience with an expiration date and a relationship that, even after you let go, is responsible for memories you hold onto forever.
It’s this sort of short-lived, attached-at-the-hip kind of companionship that’s illustrated in the form of a relationship with a red balloon in “Cherry Tongue,” the new music video from DD Island, the project of Brandon Rhodes, which I’m thrilled to premiere here!
I never want to forget // Fallin’ through your window
The description of the artist’s newest single, released in July, doesn’t offer much insight into the meaning of the song itself but remains a bit abstract, utilizing language that hints at the visuals to come.
“’Cherry Tongue’ floats on a soft bed of reverberation and lucidity. Lyrically grounded in a harsh reality, sonically floating on air, the track takes the listener under its wing and into its cherry red world.”
In the video, the artist is approached on the beach by a balloon, which proceeds to accompany him on a romantic romp through New York—down streets and through parks, in dark bars and on subway platforms—complete with caressing, kissing, laughing, walking, talking, twirling. Until, at the end, the artist gently, voluntarily releases the string and lets it float, and fade, away.
While Brandon’s costar is an inanimate object, the scene is familiar. The personification works. You find yourself investing in the relationship (it probably reminds you of one of your own), and feeling a familiar sadness when the red-rubber sphere soars off into space. Perhaps that’s because impermanence is inevitable; everything ends. And even if we know nothing can last forever, we still remember, and mourn a little, even as we move on.
“Cherry Tongue” follows DD Island’s last single, “Future Days.”
Grab your tickets to see DD Island at Purgatory on September 9th with Pons, Big Girl and Sunshine here—
BYOBalloon, obviously.
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Follow DD Island at @dd.island, buy music on Bandcamp and add songs to your Spotify playlists!
Feature image provided by the artist.