NYC dreamgaze band PANIK FLOWER shares anxiety-ridden ‘ocd’ – the second single from PANIK FLOWER’s upcoming sophomore EP rearview, out 30 April.
‘ocd’ is about the “obsessive consumption diet” of media in our everyday lives. From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep with TikTok playing another ‘breaking news’ video, we are aware and overwhelmed.
“The song explores the obsessive and addictive relationship we have with media consumption in today’s world and how that shapes us as individuals. It has a complete chokehold on our daily functions living in the modern world even when you’re aware of how toxic it is. The chorus really drives this point home with the repetition of the lines ‘you catch yourself but you can’t catch a break, you catch yourself but you can’t look away.’”
Sage Leopold
The accompanying video, directed by Aji Bass, is a nod to the 90s era of music videos that you would want to watch on repeat on MTV.
“For the ‘ocd’ music video, we wanted to lean into a grungy ‘90s aesthetic and let the themes of the song guide the edit. The more composed wide shots of the band represent ‘reality;’ a typical PANIK FLOWER rehearsal or performance. The video quickly devolves into an implied destabilized mental state by the first chorus. Intrusive thoughts make their way into the video in the form of quick, frenetic cuts and teasing a mysterious silhouetted figure who continuously appears and disappears. The structure of the song lends to this juxtaposition, between chaos and stabilization then back to chaos, until we end where we started: wide on the band, back to their reality, maybe just a little more disheveled than before but still standing.”
Aji Bass
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