Faris McReynolds, who alone comprises the Los Angeles-based one man band ExDetectives, today posted the video for “The Lawn”, the first single from the debut ExDetectives album Take My Forever, out now on Post Planetary Records.
The video, directed by Larisa Laivins, is a dreamy ramble through a sundrenched city. Laivins says the clip is “inspired by being a teenager having no specific destination and just wanting to be out in the world, checking things out, listening to music and skating down the street or driving around aimlessly.”
The song itself is a droning wash of guitars and live – as in not programmed – synthesizers that evoke Britpop bands such as Blur, Ride, and Elastica, as well as first wave indie rock like Dinosaur, Jr.
“I wanted it to be this mass of sound that stays in place all the way through the song,” McReynolds explains. “No dynamics, just this wide swirl of textures. It’s got loud distorted guitars, yet it manages to come off as mellow. I’m proud of that.”
McReynolds believes that the video for “The Lawn” is true to those sounds, saying, “Much like the song itself, it is sort of lo-fi. I like that it looks like a home video from the 90’s and has that same washed out feeling.”
Created in a quick two-week fit of low-budget recording (vocals were tracked in a storage closet), McReynolds plays all of the instruments (save for the drums) on Take My Forever. It’s a radical approach to making a record that bears itself out all the way down to the title itself. As McReynolds states, “The title of the album says, ‘Here, you can fucking have it. Make of it what you will.”