Since its inception in 2015, The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture's side project Summer Moon has undergone a lineup change (Au Revoir Simone's Erika Spring and the Like's Tennesse Thomas have been replaced by Uh Huh Her's Camila Grey, The Airborne Toxic Event 's Noah Harmon, and Jane’s Addiction's Stephen Perkins), released a debut album that earned mixed reviews, had their title track "With You Tonight" soundtrack a brief video for Alexa Chung’s collaboration with AG Jeans, and performed at various shows and festivals across the United States.
Thanks to Milan-based A/V producer, filmmaker and director Michele Vitobello, the track "Chemical Solution" now has a kinetic and abstract music video that does instant justice to the quartet's retro-futuristic aesthetic. Against heavy 1980s electro rhythms, Fraiture's mixed-back, cool and phlegmatic vocals stretch out two relatively opaque verses into a fully fledged post-punk song:
'Tell me you knowHow it feels in our worldIt’s trueCandy colored capletsSwirling reds, whites, and bluesKaleidoscopic luminolAnd our loveIs trueTwenty one and nowhereNothing elseTo do'
Lyrics:
The abstractions lend weight to Fraiture's open-ended navel-gazing, which evokes a state of youthful aimlessness ('Twenty one and nowhere/ Nothing else/ To do') that, like luminol, glows hypnotically in the darkness. DIY's Dan Jeakins singled out the track as an album highlight earlier this year, and noted that it traded in pop sensibilities for "dark, reflective psychedelia". The heavily stylized posturing may be off-putting to some, but the honesty (the adjective 'true' is the centerpiece of both verses, immediately following a mention of emotion in both cases) that seems to underpin the track's cryptic iciness might draw them in nonetheless.
