Electro-Lullaby

"Magazine" - the most recent Chromatics track to merit an accompanying music video - is not included in the track listing for the much-anticipated Dear Tommy album. The track is from Chromatics mastermind Johnny Jewel's score for Fien Troch’s upcoming film Home. The soundtrack will also feature new and unreleased songs from Chromatics and Jewel’s other project Symmetry.

Unlike the carefully stylized music videos for “I Can Never Be Myself When You’re Around” and ’s title trackDear Tommy, "Magazine" features naturalistic scenes from Troch's film. Belgian actor Sebastian Van Dun stars as a teenager going through the anxieties and turbulences of adolescence - exploring his new identities as he broods alone, uses social media and socializes with his peers. 

The spacey, vocoder-processed male vocals (which makes the lyrics barely intelligible - thought I did make out 'Don't ask me why ...') on the track will probably remind you of "These Streets Will Never Look the Same"; both tracks hypnotize you into a meditative state marked by discontent and inertia. 

Jewel has noted that Troch asked him to “ride the line between hitting the viewer head on with a pop song that immediately sweeps them into that world and then subconsciously creeping in through the back door with score where the viewer doesn’t even realize they’re hearing music" (). The final product works like an electro-lullaby, reeling you into a contemplation of how it feels like to grow up in the modern digital age.