Premiere: The High Water Marks Shares New Video for “Fantastic Machine”
Proclaimer of Things Out Now via Minty Fresh
Apr 25, 2022
Hilarie Sidney has had a storied career in the indie rock underground, including co-founding the Elephant Six collective and drumming for The Apples In Stereo. In recent years, Sidney has returned to the world of indie rock with her band The High Water Marks. The band returned from over a decade on hiatus with their 2020 album Ecstasy Rhymes and followed this year with another new album, Proclaimer of Things. Today the band have shared a new video for one of the highlights from Proclaimer of Things, “Fantastic Machine,” premiering with Under the Radar.
With “Fantastic Machine” the band turns their eye toward social media. They frame their subject as a machine that has gotten loose and taken immense, unexpected power, marrying the imagery of unregulated capitalist growth with a propulsive indie rock style. Drummer Øystein Megård drives the track forward at an unrelenting pace, contrasted against dreamy vocal melodies from Sidney and husband and bandmate Per Ole Bratset. The track’s churning tempo finally culminates in a fuzz-laden guitar solo from Bratset, drawing the song to a close with a hint of glam rock flair.
As the band describes, “This song is about the fantastic machine that is the social media. Just a bit of social commentary. There has been a lot of talk about machines that are helpful, good, and maybe even great, since the industrial revolution. But this song is about a machine that is fantastic. So fantastic that it takes on a life of its own. At the same time, it is not so fantastic when you think about how it got away from us. It is fantastic to think a machine like this exists, it lives in this world at the same time as us, but it’s also a monster that we created without realizing it.”
Scott Fitzpatrick, the director of the video, elaborates on the concept, saying, “When I look at The High Water Marks artwork, it gives me a sense of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, mixing old photos with cartoons and doing it well. When I was told that the song was loosely based on the impact of social media I thought, ‘They will need to have their own social media somehow involved!’ So, the video is a tongue-in-cheek slant at social attitudes both old and new, and also reflective of the world we live in at this moment.”
Sidney and Bratset add, “Fun fact: The solo at the end of the song was recorded in one take when Per Ole was testing if the fuzz pedal was right for the tune. I guess it was, because we kept it. He channeled his inner Slash on that one for sure.”
Check out the song and accompanying video below. Proclaimer of Things is out now via Minty Fresh.
