OWEL – “Too Young to Fall in Love” (video) (premiere)

“Too Young to Fall in Love” is the latest from OWEL, pulled from their lush sophomore record, dear me. Over a lush arrangement of keyboards, vocalist Jay Sakong teases out images of restlessness, of inaction, of the torpor of being young and longing for something you can’t entirely name. The song ebbs and flows on a tide of strings provided by multi-instrumentalist Jane Park; it is underpinned by a tight drumbeat, locked in with guitar and bass. It’s a hell of a song.

“I went on a binge watch of Black Mirror,” says Sakong, of the new video for “Too Young to Fall in Love”, directed by Red Penn media. “It got me into that frame of mind, of how technology is affecting us and maybe evolving us as social creatures.”

The video, which features the courtship of a couple as mediated through screens and photographs, is surreal, with its featureless white backdrop and supporting cast of masked and gloved doctors. “I wanted to touch on our willingness to engage and interact with each other through the filter of a screen,” Sakong says, “as well as the discomfort we feel when we are face to face… It’s definitely one of our more heavily synthesized songs, so technology’s played a bigger part in this song. That seemed to match pretty well.”

dear me is available now through Equal Vision Records. OWEL is currently touring with label-mates A Lot Like Birds — find tickets here.