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EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Sail Channel the Lockdown Energies Into Their “Mannequin”

It’s pretty amazing how quickly quarantine and lockdown have become sanitzed. There are already (and have been for a few weeks) listicles and “self help” posts about living your

4 years ago

It’s pretty amazing how quickly quarantine and lockdown have become sanitzed. There are already (and have been for a few weeks) listicles and “self help” posts about living your best quarantine and how to, for some reason, continue to be productive even as the fabrics of our society unravel. That’s why it was so refreshing to watch Sail‘s video for “Mannequin”, their new single. They asked some of their friends to film themselves for the video and while that idea in and of itself is not that original, the end result is. Instead of a sanitized, romanticized vision of life at home,  the video exhibits a more fragmentary, and realistic version of what it’s like for different people to be locked down, namely a different experience for each. Head on down below to check it out.

In case you don’t remember who Sail are, we’ve featured them several times on the blog in the past. On “Mannequin”, their brand of melodic and groovy doom/stoner is perhaps at its most convincing and evocative yet. The main riff of the track works beautifully with its heartfelt vocals, the groove section supplying the heft and thrust for the track itself. Couple that with the emotional, interesting, depressing, and uplifting images of the video (a man in a beekeeper suit plays chess by himself, a baby walks in nature, grass is cut to an excoriating standard, a couple dances to music) and the result is a good approximation of the heady, powerful, and difficult experience that is lockdown.

The video, and the track, remind us why music, and art in general, are so important. They offer a non-comfortable, non-romantic vision into every day life, one that doesn’t go to exorbitant lengths to “dumb things down” or make them palatable. Instead, it channels those frustratingly complicated emotions into catharsis, through the music itself and through the empathy the video hopefully creates in us.

“Mannequin” is now out and can be purchased over at the band’s Bandcamp (alongside some cool remixes). Stay safe out there folks.

P.S. Can we please get more band photos of people smiling with dogs? Thanks.

Eden Kupermintz

Published 4 years ago