The first moments of Office Culture’s “Open Up Your First” video drop us into a surrealist, almost disorienting vision. It’s off-putting in a way, but impossible to ignore, especially against the song’s romping cadence and Winston Cook-Wilson’s. Gilded melodies glide atop the winding clatter echoing the shapeshifting narrative in Madison Bloom’s video. Urgency grows in Ryan El-Solh’s guitar arrangements and the bombastic spaces of Jason Burger’s drumming. I’m never sure if it’s a fairytale or nightmare, but sonically it’s an effervescence. Before it disappears into smoke, “Open Up Your Fist” slips us back into consciousness.
“Beach Friday,” also out today, is an electric caper through countless midnights and then back. Alena Spanger’s quixotic vocal melody drives the song forward from the background, the hypnotic anchor around which this entire landscape blooms. Shuffling rhythms press memories into an aural prism, confined and trying to break out into the light. Hope looms in the distance and pulls us forward on entrancing waves.
Both songs appear on Office Culture’s new album, Enough, out on October 18 via Ruination Record Co. Pre-order HERE.
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