Daily Dose: She Keeps Bees, “Greasy Grass” (Premiere)
Photo by Jonathan Dy Music Features She Keeps Bees
Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
In case you missed it, She Keeps Bees is angry right now. The lo-fi duo of singer/guitarist Jessica Larrabee and drummer Andy LaPlant has been working together for more than 10 years now, returning with a fiery force last month in response to the Trump regime. Via European label BB*Island, the band released a limited-edition 7” single of “Our Bodies” and “Head of Steak,”, which decries the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act and reneging of America’s involvement in the Paris Accord, respectively. Plus, all profits from the first year of sales will be donated to Planned Parenthood and Earth Justice.
Today, though, Paste premieres a video for “Greasy Grass,” from the band’s last full-length album, Eight Houses. Although written and recorded in 2014, the song’s meaning and visual accompaniment seems more relevant than ever. Director Mallory Amirault, with help from students at the Britannia Secondary School in Vancouver, depicts humanity’s dependence on, and capitalistic entanglement with oil through a dark series of artistic shots. As Larrabee and LaPlant smother themselves in a tar-like substance, it fills viewers with a sense of griminess as visceral as the song’s distorted timbre (before making you want take a bath like the ducky like in those cute/sad Dawn soap commercials).
As Amirault writes:
Initially, this project followed the concept of “eating the bullets of warfare” to highlight an Indigenous resilience to violence as it relates to oil and water. Moving forward to the technical rebar of this concept, I quickly realized its strength was on paper as a metaphor, rather than its symbolic rendering on screen. Thinking of the film as a poem, I worked to refine the elements already embedded in the project and in our props to push the concept into something metaphorically stronger for the screen. The peaceful confrontation against oil and the affirmation of water was upheld, as our consumptive relationship between these two resources was distilled into a shot list that allowed for the lighting and props to do the heavy conceptual lifting.
Read more about the director, mission and collaborations on Amirault’s website. Watch the video for She Keeps Bees’s “Greasy Grass” and check out the band’s tour schedule, opening for Benjamin Booker, below. Eight Houses is out now.
September
8 – Portland, Ore. @ Wonder Ballroom
9 – Vancouver, B.C. @ Biltmore Cabaret
10 – Seattle, Wash. @ Neumos
13 – Salt Lake City, Utah @ The State Room
29 – Solana Beach, Calif. @ Belly Up
30 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ Crescent Ballroom
October
3 – Dallas, Texas @ Trees
4 – Houston, Texas @ White Oak Music Hall
9 – Nashville, Tenn. @ The Basement East
10 – St. Louis, Mo. @ Old Rock House
11 – Lawrence, Kan. @ The Bottleneck
16 – Chicago, Ill. @ Thalia Hall
17 – Detroit, Mich. @ Magic Stick
18 – Toronto, Ont. @ Mod Club
20 – Boston, Mass. @ The Sinclair
22 – Brooklyn, N.Y. – Music Hall of Williamsburg
23 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
25 – Atlanta, Ga. – The Loft
26 – Birmingham, Ala. @ Saturn