Listen/Watch: Mothers - "PINK"

photo by Dylan Pearce

One of the things I immediately noticed about "BLAME KIT" and now "PINK", the two first singles from Philly experimental rockers Mothers upcoming sophomore record Render Another Ugly Method, was how lyrically dense the songs are. It's not that singer/songwriter Kristin Leschper wasn't a particularly obtuse writer previously, but When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired seemed to strike a particular balance of even her most abstract lyrics fitting suspiciously smooth into each song's particular narrative. On "PINK" and perhaps indicative of Render Another Ugly Method in general, Leschper's isn't particularly bothered by framing things in a tidy, coherent structure. Instead Leschper achieves a sort of stream of consciousness expanse tethered by a particularly methodical delivery. Perhaps more so than ever, Leschper outfits her voice like another instrument in the band - less concerned with it's softer, more fragile qualities and instead exploring how it can feed into a band in motion. Where previously there seemed to be an ebb and flow between the instrumental parts of Mothers' songs to provide room for Leschper's delicate vocals, here they're a part of the din.

Where "BLAME KIT" seemed concerned with the body - ways that external stimulus effect it in the form of positive and negative attention, "PINK" is concerned with time. Leschper again experiments with song structure in her lyrics and stitches a series of memories together all bound by their relation to cars. It's a song containing a great deal of tension - it's nearly 7 minutes operating at much of it's initial tempo. For a band like Mothers that revels into dynamics, it's a surprising move but one that builds even more tension through the subversion of expectation.  

The music video, directed by Jake Lazovik and Richard Phillip Smith, capitalizes on that drawn out sense of tension placing Leschper in a waiting room for what indeterminable about of time but the viewer sees through a window and how the light affects her, that the passage of time. It's subtle but there's an element of uncomfortableness not unlike a psychological thriller as slightly weirder things start to happen in the room. Leschper dodges a cinderblock wrapped in yellow balloons and  while this moments would normally warrant a big reaction, it's treated as a normal occurrence and as such the music doesn't change to soundtrack it. Where the viewer serves largely as a voyeur to Leschper's patient stay, the action both in the music and its video are initiated and dictated through her. When she suddenly cranes her neck in alarm towards the window, the tension reaches a breaking point and the song finally gives in to a dramatic shift. It's a sort of release of the build up and yet, the video instead creates more: Leschper's startled face appears on the room's sole television screen, her dropped plastic cup gets an almost unsettling closeup.    

Render Another Ugly Method, Mothers' sophomore record and ANTI- records debut is out September 7th. You can pre-order the record now.