Whitney Share "Valleys (My Love)," New Song from Sophomore Record Forever Turned Around

Chicago indie favorites Whitney have a particular brand: delicately layered, tender meditations on connection with wide-eyed falsettos and cinematic strings. Whitney’s tracks are airy but textured, gossamer but confident, and they’ve collected a whole slew of new ones on August’s sophomore effort, Forever Turned Around.

Our latest taste of the record is “Valleys (My Love),” a wistfully humid cut meditating on long-distance love and natural beauty inspired by a scenic drive through Montana. The track might be Whitney’s most panoramic yet, with Max Kakacek’s pirouetting guitars dancing around plunking keys and sweeping strings. Soft percussion and a grainy bass line root the track while Julian Ehrlich’s familiar falsetto yearns from afar, making “Valleys (My Love)” feel like a vision in the distance of its titular setting.

Ehrlich’s lyrics are endearingly melancholy, capturing the strains and revelations of romantic separation with naturalistic precision: “I never wanna fade away / Wanna turn as the seasons change / And every time that you come around / Well, the days of the year just slow down,” he pines just before the song’s emotive bridge.

“Valleys (My Love)” comes in tow with a Nick Woytuk-directed video that follows a commercial truck driver (played by R. L. Roundtree) on the road. Alternating between high-definition widescreen and coarser film aesthetics, the Portland-shot video layers the track’s lyrical themes with additional questions of nostalgia and transience with softspoken ease.

Whitney Share “Valleys (My Love),” New Song from Sophomore Record Forever Turned Around