Brooklyn reggae rockers Super Hi-Fi release new video for “Gone”
Watch “Gone” above; premiered on Vents Magazine
BROOKLYN, NY | FEBRUARY 23, 2018: The process of creating Super Hi-Fi’s new video for “Gone” started when bassist Ezra Gale snuck into the Pratt Institute and hung-up fliers advertising a need for filmmakers. It wasn’t long after this stealthy mission that Gale connected with aspiring cinematographers William Bermudez, Sam Friedman, and Caden Ghen, who were eager to collaborate. From there, the conceptual vision for “Gone” quickly came into focus; a vision that would lead the group to Dead Horse Bay and what they would come to jokingly refer to as their “Revenant” experience.
“Gone,” which premiered on Vents Magazine earlier this week, was filmed on a freezing December afternoon in Dead Horse Bay. It is this one-time Brooklyn landfill that provides the bleak setting for Super Hi-Fi’s mysterious music video for “Gone.” Littered with old bottles and debris, the polluted beach in Dead Horse Bay is the perfect backdrop for a song that uses the concept of pining for lost love as a metaphor for mankind’s fragile relationship with mother earth. Actor Gus Cuddy stars in the video, playing the role of a man who is desperately trying to repair an old shipwrecked boat to search for his lost love. He wanders the shoreline futilely picking-up bottles and trying to clean-up a mess that far exceeds his capabilities. After stopping to rest, he awakens to discover that the boat has vanished, and all that is left is the trash-strewn beach and a small blue vial containing a mysterious note.
The song itself is built upon a slow-moving reggae groove that features Super Hi-Fi’s signature, interweaving trombone melodies. At times the music builds to almost cacophonous heights, with wild flourishes of experimental electric guitar, only to ease back down to its original relaxed pace. Much like the lyrical content, the music for “Gone” conveys a sense of losing control, or feeling powerless in the face of unnameable forces.
“To me, the song “Gone” is supposed to work on two different levels; on the surface it’s a song about a relationship and pining away for someone who doesn’t care about you, but on a deeper
level it’s about our relationship with the earth, assigning all these protective feelings to ‘Mother Earth’ when in fact the planet is indifferent to us.” – Ezra Gale
Following on the heels of “Little Black Book”, “Gone” comes as the second single off the band’s forthcoming LP Blue and White, which is set for release via Very Special Recordings on March 9, 2018. Prior to the official album drop, Super Hi-Fi will celebrate with a record release show at Nublu in New York City alongside The Cameramen on March 3; details can be found here. Blue and White will be available for streaming and purchase through all major digital retailers, and is currently available for pre-order via Bandcamp here.
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“Most of this stuff is just plain good, woozy, echoey dub in a purist oldschool Black Ark vein.”
– NY Music Daily
“Super Hi-Fi has a major dose of what you love” – The Afrobeat Blog
“Warm, enveloping, and heavy as lead”! – Reggae Vibes!
About Super Hi-Fi:
Brooklyn-based Super Hi-Fi- an underground supergroup of sorts whose members have backed a diverse collection of artists ranging from Beyonce to Donovan to Bill Frisell to the Skatalites- mixes jazz-inflected trombones, the heavy rhythmic thump of Jamaican dub and touches of afrobeat, funk and rock for a mix memorably described as an ‘imaginary soundtrack from Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, The Specials and Led Zeppelin.’ Led by bassist and composer Ezra Gale, whose last outfit, the San Francisco-based Aphrodesia, took their take on afrobeat all the way to Femi Kuti’s Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria, Super Hi-Fi has been making waves in the fertile New York music scene since 2010, releasing records nearly non-stop since their debut full-length album, “Dub To The Bone,” in 2012.
Deservedly acclaimed both for their prolific recorded output and their live show, Super Hi-Fi’s unique double trombone-led sound is equally at home at a raucous dance party or an intense listening session. Applying the improvisatory dub mixing approach to live performances of the band’s original compositions and inspired covers, the group has shared stages with John Brown’s Body, Rubblebucket, Beats Antique, Debo Band, Meta and the Cornerstones, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad and many others at venues like the Brooklyn Bowl, Maxwell’s, the Mercury Lounge, the Rocks Off Concert series and elsewhere.
Meanwhile the group’s varied recorded output- which with the release of the new album “Blue and White” will stretch to five full-length albums and 4 single releases in five years- has garnered worldwide praise. Their debut full-length, ‘Dub To The Bone,’ was crowned ‘Best Reggae album of the year’ from NY Music Daily and the #1 album of the week from the NY Daily News (Dec 2, 2012). The band’s first single, the 7″ “Single Payer” (Electric Cowbell Records), was recorded by Brooklyn dub legend Prince Polo and received raves (“warm, enveloping, and heavy as lead” said Reggae Vibes) with a B-side of a radically deconstructed remix from Brazil-based dub producer Victor Rice. A split 7″ with Seattle’s Polyrhythmics featuring the “cinematic afro-dub” of “We Will Begin Again,” was called “Eerie, reminiscent of Rico Rodriquez’ work on the Specials’ Ghost Town” by Splinters and Candy. The band’s two Christmas albums- “Yule Analog Vol. 1” (2014), and “Yule Analog Vol. II” (2015) featured re-imaginings of Christmas classics and were critically acclaimed even from Scrooges like the music website InForty, who wished “If only shopping malls were blasting this every holiday season!” Next came two releases of inspired takes on classic songs- the Record Store Day Beatles/Police single on Electric Cowbell and the cassette (!) and download-only “Super Hi-Fi Plays Nirvana” (Very Special Recordings), which Paris DJ’s called “for sure the most surprising cover album of 2016!”
Super Hi-Fi’s new release, “Blue and White”, will feature original songs and will have a stunning cover design from printmaker Robert Swainston, who designed a cover that will be printed on each album individually. “Each one will be a little different but will come from the same source” explains Gale, “which echoes the aesthetics of dub music where you have different pieces made from the same song.” It’s a different perspective and more ambitious than most, but it’s clear by now that there aren’t many challenges Super Hi-Fi isn’t interested in taking on.
Super Hi-Fi is:
Rick Parker, Robert Stringer – Trombones
Jon Lipscomb – Guitar
Ezra Gale – Bass, vocals
Madhu Siddappa – Drums
For press inquiries, contact [email protected]
