“What’s your life like, besides lifelike?” asks Nicholas Nicholas on “Wrong and Right”. The new video for the track, off of 2014’s Wrong, is foggy and hallucinogenic. Chris Masullo, also of Phantom Posse, goes through monotonous costume changes, holds up everyday objects removed from their meaning. The new wave-y bummerpop track, cloaked in reverb and replete with clicks, stutters, and programmed hi-hats projects muffled desperation, like a tranquilized John Maus or a self-aware Youth Lagoon. Mastered by Warren Hildebrand (Foxes in Fiction), the production is warm and oddly comforting throughout.
The combination of sonic warmth and emotional distance creates a feeling of dissociation in the listener, and the video’s ennui only furthers this effect. As Masullo sings: “I don’t seem to know what will fit inside the tight lines of what you like to call, wrong and right”, he mixes a hodgepodge of objects into a mixing bowl – paper, an orange, flour, scotch tape, a Sharpie – then puts this concoction in the oven and waits. The sequence, shot in POV, brings the viewer into the space with Masullo, and thus into the spacey song itself. We never find out what’s wrong or right or what will come out of the oven, and the excitement in “Wrong as Right” as well as the rest of Wrong comes from this dichotomy between inconsistency and expectation.
Wrong is out digitally and as a cassette on Miscreant Records. Nicholas Nicholas tour dates:
February
12 – Cameo Gallery, Brooklyn,NY %
20 – Stony Brook University
March
02 – Middle East (Upstairs)- Cambridge, MA $
03 – The Bowery Electric- New York, NY *
04 – TBA- New Brunswick, NJ*
05 – Kung Fu Necktie- Philadelphia, PA *
06 – TBA – Baltimore, MD
07 – TBA – Washington, DC
08 – Sour Haus- Richmond, VA *
09- House Show- Harrisonburg, VA *
10 – IX Art Park- Charlottesville, VA
11 – The Bazaar- Roanoke, VA *
12 – Slims- Raleigh, NC *
13 – TBA- Charlotte, NC *
14 – Springwater- Nashville, TN
15 – Circle Bar- New Orleans, LA *
17-21 – SXSW- Austin, TX
22 – Shipping & Receiving- Ft. Worth, TX*
23 – TBA- Memphis, TN*
24 – TBA- Birmingham, AL*
25 – TBA- Atlanta, GA*
26 – The Odditorium- Asheville, NC *
27 – The Calico Room- Wilmington, NC *
28 – Shush Factory- Norfolk, VA *
31 – The College of William & Mary @ The Meridian- Williamsburg, VA *
April
01 Robin Williams Center of The Arts- Blacksburg, VA*
02 Strange Matter- Richmond, VA *
% – w/ Alex Calder and The Mary Onettes
$ – w/ Palehound and ONWE
* – w/ ONWE
