The video was filmed in the Town Hall of Plainfield, NH, near where frontman Will Sheff grew up. Sheff reminisces on the old building, “I remember nights as a kid where we’d go to the Town Hall and watch guys from the town get up and play little rock and roll sets in front of this beautiful three-dimensional Maxfield Parrish backdrop while ladies would sell cans of Coke and 7-Up through the concession window. As time passed in my life, the backdrop seemed less real to me and I wanted to go back to film it to see if it was really there and was as cool as I remember it. It’s even cooler now thanks to the great work of Nancy Norwalk and a group of Plainfield preservationists who cleaned and restored it a decade or so ago - the backdrop is still lit by a custom lighting rig special-ordered from New York City in 1916, though the Town Hall itself is over a hundred years older than that. For the first song from the record I wanted Nancy to give everybody out there in internetland a chance to see her run the beautiful times-of-day lightshow by hand to the accompaniment of the music.”

Greg Porn’s got a killer, rapid-fire flow backed with humorous tongue-twisting verses. With Amerikin Junkie, releasing July 16th, he displays that talent in full. “It’s reality music,” Porn says. “Up in your face, lyrical—super lyrical—but easy to digest.” Today, we are premiering the tune “Cloud 9” from the record and we’ll let Porn tell you about it in his own words…

“The ‘Cloud 9’ track came about because we loved that guitar riff. We wanted to do a song that mixed live elements with a banging swing beat. For some reason, it reminded me of painkillers, probably because of its melodic numbness, so I spoke about a day in the life of a west Philly pillhead. How we think, feel and act on our high. A friend of mine from Cali (Ivan Ives) produces videos and really liked the song. He had an idea for a dope commercial/video and thought it would fit perfectly. I am a big fan of crazy imagery and this video has a whole lot.”

“I can only make about four steps forward before I touch the door, and if I turn in an about face at any place in this cell, I’m gonna bump into something.” As Herman Wallace speaks, you see a black screen at the start of Herman’s House. Angad Bhall’s documentary goes on to make visceral, if not precisely visible, the small space this Angola prison inmate describes. Living in solitary confinement for over 41 years, the 71-year-old Wallace corresponds throughout the film with artist Jackie Sumell, who has made it her life’s project to build the house Herman has imagined, the house he might move to when he’s released, and also to make public his cruel and unusual punishment with gallery installations, a series of replicas of his tiny cell.

The best-written book of Neil Gaiman’s career is focused, lyrical, and profoundly perceptive in its exploration of childhood and memory, and it’s also quite frightening—like one of Truman Capote’s holiday stories by way of Stephen King.

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The tune will appear on Verve’s new Verve Remixed: First Ladies compilation coming July 16th and featuring other remixes by Flume, Bassnectar and more.