Psych-pop Band the Go Rounds Unveil Trippy Video Ahead of New LP (premiere)

Teasing fans with what’s to come on their forthcoming record, cult psychedelic pop-rock group the Go Rounds have unveiled a suitably eerie and deliciously delirious video for lead single “Foxtrot”.

“The song ‘Foxtrot’ is a musical adaptation of a poem with the same title by Michael Dickman,” says Graham Parsons, songwriter the Kalamazoo, Michigan, band. “The poem is about finding a dead, rotting animal in the middle of a field or life’s proverbial ‘dance floor.’ Death and dying for many forms of living things can seem silent or mundane, can feel irrelevant, but when we look closer we see the microcosm as the macrocosm. A bloody chest cavity filled with ants and maggots, teeming with life. Often when we look for meaning or truth in our existence, we look outward, farther from ourselves, neglecting the infinite within all of us. So much can be said about the things we never see.”

The album “Foxtrot” has a home on, Whatever You May Be, is due out Friday, 5 April.

Parsons described their second LP as “an examination of our mirrors — the places, times, and relationships that hold our reflection. A fever dream, sweating out an obsession with romantic partnerships or self-indulgence as means of seeking approval and creating self-worth. A clearing on the horizon.”

He elaborated that the album captures that indefinable sense of becoming and never being, the contradictory reality of change itself being static.

“I forgot that I’m not where I’m from anymore,” he said. “I belong wherever I am, and the work is never done. I am sick and I am well. Full of darkness and light. Capable of the worst and the best of things. Learning and unlearning. Can you see beyond my flaws, my weaknesses? Is it OK if I don’t plan to stay put or settle, but rather, simply trust in the transient nature and cycle of all things?

“What I see in the mirror is what I see in you and in the world at large. There’s no hiding the lines of age around my mouth and eyes. Change is the only constant, and when I leave I want you to feel better than before I came. Giving in is easy. Giving up is tired. Giving without reason or an expectation of return takes continuous practice and work, and the work still feels worth it to me.”

“Foxtrot’s” dizzying video of impressionistic, stop-motion dancers spinning with light-emitting fingers beneath a purple sky was directed by Maren Celest.

The video “is a manifestation of feelings prompted by the music and lyrics, embodied by some of my dearest friends (Alyssa Martinez, Despina Papadeas, and Nika Nemirovsky) for the reason that I wanted both a sense of nostalgia and intimacy and the feeling of exploring something completely new and so big-feeling, it might as well be discovering a planet,” Celest said. “With all this in mind, I wanted a loose narrative — that my friends, just ‘born’ (falling from the sky), were exploring and dancing through an alien terrain (that is actually home), full of light and life until they dance their way right out into the mystery.”

Celest attached tiny lights to the dancers’ fingertips and used long exposure to add to the mysterious and futuristic aura she felt matched the feel of the poem and song.

“The Go Rounds have a sound that seems both really familiar and fresh, dotted with cosmic sounds that are beautiful, explosive, and hard to place,” she continued. “I wanted the video to have lots of room for the driving and strong presence of the music and the viewer’s imagination, meant to encourage them to do their own exploration. I also wanted the video to be a flurry of activity that would go through its entire lifespan in front of your eyes, a nod to the poem the lyrics were built on. One of my favorite functions of good poetry is that it has the capability to reveal limitless mystery and depth in things we might start to see as everyday, mundane. Good friends and good music are like this, too, and this is a really fun song to move to and explore to with your friends, [as] I can vouch!”

Wherever You May Be can be pre-ordered here.