Daily Dose: Bodega, “Shiny New Model”

Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.

There’s an art to a good bodega. It’s gotta be conveniently located, obviously, and it’s gotta have exactly what you need in that instant—beers, cigarettes, Cheetos, you name it. You don’t want it to be filthy, but a pristinely clean bodega can be even more unnerving than seeing a rat scurry into the corner.

It should come as new surprise that the rising New York band Bodega know this truth; It should be even less surprising that their new track, “Shiny New Model,” directly confronts it, folding in quiet meditations on the sterility of late-capitalist innovations and the complicated realities of the gig economy.

“Tell me don’t you relate to the state of that silver sepulchre?” frontman Ben Hozie asks in relation to ATMs; “Tell me don’t you feel used? Buttons pressed in the back of a bodega.” He’s singing over a pirouetting guitar line and an intimate bass groove. It’s not quite glam, not quite grunge, but just the right combination of both.

“Shiny New Model” comes paired with a video directed by Brian Ngai and Nikki Belfiglio. In a teal-painted room, the quintet dance and groove with each other and props. Like the song itself, it’s a breezy watch.

Bodega is composed of Hozie, Belfiglio, Heather Elle, Madison Velding Vandam and Tail Lee. They’re releasing a new EP, also named Shiny New Model, on Oct. 11 via What’s Your Rupture. You can pre-order it here. Check out the video for “Shiny New Model” below, then keep scrolling to find the EP’s details and the band’s upcoming tour dates.