MGMT Share Video For New Song “Nothing to Declare”
Loss of life Releases February 23 via Mom + Pop
January 10, 2024
Photo: Jonah Freeman
MGMT (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser) release a new album, Loss of life, on February 23 via Mom + Pop. Now they've shared their third single, “Nothing to Declare,” via a music video. Joey Frank directed the video, which stars Inga Petry, who was born with upper limb aplasia. Filmed in Paris. Check it out below.
Frank said of the video in a press release: “When I first saw Inga on TikTok, I imagined her as the star of a foreign movie. A particular brand of 1990s European independent cinema characterized by the Dardenne brothers always essentially follows a man navigating through life. Inga has been without arms her entire life, which lends a different kind of vulnerability to the simple narrative of a self-possessed young woman traveling from Pittsburgh to Paris. In real life, Inga puts herself online in a very honest way on TikTok, but MGMT's 'Nothing to Declare' music video draws on the aesthetics of independent cinema to allow the audience a different kind of emotional imaginary space with Inga as the prototype. .
Petry had this to say: “When Joey first approached me about doing this project, it was the parallelism in his vision that first attracted me. We listened to “Nothing to Declare” as he took me to the concept of the video and I was met by the juxtaposition of beauty and melancholy. Having grown up without arms, I have been watched my whole life. In some ways, Venus of Milos has always felt analogous to my own life, and specifically to the character I play in this film. She is adored, respected and almost constantly surrounded by people, and yet she stands alone and her past is unknown. There were always questions surrounding her hands and she never had to answer or prove her worth. For my part, he has nothing to declare. To play this character who is different, and not just because he doesn't have arms, but in the way he handles the difference and still feeds off new curiosity was a really beautiful experience.
“As an individual, the song and the film resonated with me in another way as well. At the time of the initial filming I had just been diagnosed with Stage III Breast Cancer. This changed my personal perception of the film and pulled me away from seeing it as a way to artistically see how my character exists with differences in her environment, and made it the experience of the individual. At this point in time, for me, “Nothing to Declare” no longer meant not having to explain your circumstances, but instead felt like a literal statement that went through the customs of life. After this diagnosis, I would not be able to exist as the same person I was. I had to put aside many of my personal goals to focus on my health and recovery. In that sense, I had to end one chapter of my life and enter a new one. A chapter that doesn't care about who I was before or what ambitions I was striving for. Instead, one that focuses on removing all the cancer and only then can I start living again. My wish is that people will see the video and enjoy the art and the mystery. I hope the vulnerability and curiosity we captured will resonate with the viewer.”
Follow Petry on Instagram here.
MGMT previously shared the album's first single, “Mother Nature,” via a music video. “Mother Nature” was one of the songs of the week. They then shared his second single, “Bubblegum Dog,” via a music video that pays homage to some of the classic alternative music videos of the 1990s. “Bubblegum Dog” was also one of the songs of the week.
Loss will be the band's first new album in six years. It is the band's fifth album and the follow-up to 2018's Little Dark Agewhich many saw as a return to form and was released through Columbia (as were their previous albums). Little Dark AgeIts title track became a viral hit during the pandemic and is the band's third most streamed song of all time, behind early hits “Electric Feel” and “Kids.”
This time the duo teamed up with producer Patrick Wimberly (Beyoncé, Lil Yachty) and longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon). As he did with all their previous albums, Fridmann mixed Loss of life. There is also additional production work on the album by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and James Richardson. Miles A. Robinson was also an associate producer and engineer on the album.
Loss of life includes the first full-length appearance on an MGMT album when Christine and the Queens appear on the song “Dancing in Babylon”.
MGMT had this to say Loss of life: “All jokes aside (never!), we're very proud of this album and the fact that it was a relatively painless birth after a long gestation period, and we're happy to release this baby into the world with Mom+Pop. Musically speaking, we're running at about 20% adult contemporary and no more than that, please.”
Writer/Director/The best show Co-host Tom Scharpling has written an essay about it Loss of life and had this to say: “Simply put, the kids have done it again! Now he's five-for-five, which last time I checked gets you into just about any Hall of Fame. This record projects an aura of undeniable warmth, an album brimming with comfortable confidence. There are epic pieces and intimate portraits, a little glam here, a little psychedelic there. It's a piece of magic that fits MGMT's work perfectly, pushing the boundaries once again.”
The album cover is a 2006 painting by John Baldessari, Noses & Ears, Etc. (Part Two): Two (Flesh) Faces with (Blue) Ears and Noses, Two (Flesh) Hands, and Hobby Horse, 2006.
Read our 2018 MGMT interview at Little Dark Age.
from our partners at http://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/mgmt_share_video_for_new_song_nothing_to_declare
