“I just wanna be / consumed by you / but I don’t wanna be / diluted by you” — “Dilute Me,” Panik Flower
Dark Blue is a 5 track EP produced by Carl Bespolka at Golden Girl Sounds in Greenpoint, BK and mastered by Carl Saff in Chicago.
Words by Jason Lee
Anyone who’s ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers or any of its many remakes and adaptations knows that people get turned into “pod people” because of flowers, cosmic space flowers from outer space to be more specific, that may look normal on the surface but which produce swarms of toxic spores while you’re not looking gestating into big fleshy pods designed to incubate doppelgängers of every human being on the planet eventually…
…where the resultant army of humanoid Xerox copies are absorbed into a collective alien consciousness—preserving each individual’s physical exterior, mental abilities and memories while disposing of their souls however ineffable and ephemeral this concept may be—and once stripped of all remnants of personality and unique individuality the whole of humanity is transformed into a swarm of soulless automatons at the service of the alien hivemind kinda like our sister organization The Yellow Deli…
…all of which we only bring up here because 1) the Body Snatcher films are one of the few examples of flowers being portrayed as a source of panic (or even “PANIK!”) where being pretty and delicate and fragrant only makes them the perfect hidden delivery mechanism for taking over the whole of humanity natch…
…and 2) there’s a Brooklyn-based band called PANIK FLOWER who on their just-released debut EP Dark Blue likewise draw upon externalized beauty—here in the guise of songs full of dream-poppy/grunge-gazey languid soundscapes with shimmering peals of echo-laden, fuzzed out and flangified guitars and breathy vocals—in service of an EP whose biggest thematic through line appears to be the tension felt in contradictory longing for and loathing of the prospect of submitting to and being taken over by some external force whether that force happens to be an all-consuming romantic obsession or soul-sucking viral space spores…
…and sure enough the self-designed “Intro” of PANIK FLOWER’s EP sounds quite literally like the flowering of an alien pod full of space spores released in a flurry into the atmosphere like a cluster of shimmering fireflies with glowing butts full of bioluminescence and speaking of bioluminescence the track fades directly into “Charades” which wins the award for best song recalling the languid jangle of Dream Syndicate or some less-remembered Paisley Underground band soon subsumed under a heavy perfume of noirish atmospherics gradually building up from hushed quietude to waves of gauzy guitar ebbs and swells coming in and out like the tide alongside super melodic baselines and push ‘n’ pull drum syncopations to an extent not heard since Mazzy Star circa 1994 which also wins the award for longest award caption…
…and speaking of Mazzy Star, vocalist/lyricist Sage Leopold seems to be uncannily possessed by the collective spirit of Shirley Manson, Hope Sandoval and/or Elizabeth Fraser (all those lovely vocal trills) with hints of Patsy Cline’s trademark “vocal tear” thrown in for good measure with octive-jumping emotional impulses audibly catching in the throat (call it yodeling if you must) as the lyrics describes a metaphorical game of charades…
…where one’s voice is silenced and one’s body put into service of communicating some random word or phrase you’ve been handed literally going through the motions even as the musical setting and the grain of the voice make it clear there’s a seductive component in submitting to the game in this manner which is probably why “I saw the signs / but I turned a blind eye” and why it’s wondered aloud “could I be complacent / to the creature / I created?” (doppelgänger!) when “we were always playing a guessing game” but then we’re just guessing too…
…and then there’s “Dark Blue” which very much captures the aura of that particular hue thanks to the instrumental efforts of Mila Stieglitz-Courtney (guitar/vocals), Jordan Buzzell (guitar) and Max Baird (bass) in supporting Sage’s admission that “what I thought I knew / now can’t be defined” and don’t even get me started on how that hook in the chorus will infect your mind like a body snatcher…
…nor the music video (dir: Olivia De Camps) where Sage, Mila, Jordan, and Max find themselves transformed into living dolls visibly splitting apart at the seams and nevermind about leather constraints cuz lace serves the same purpose just fine here which maybe or maybe not speaks to the in large part imperceptible constraints of living in an ersatz domestic dollhouse type setting like Catherine Deneuve slowly unravelling in the movie Repulsion or maybe it just looks cool but by the end they burn the house down and I really hope Shudder picks up the full series cuz three minutes just ain’t enough..
…and then there’s “Playground” which could be said to be PANIK FLOWER’s 10,000 Maniacs moment (in fact we just said it (!) yes we’re going all in on the ’80s/’90s musical referents but feel free to substitute your own more modern equivalencies) with a vibey alt-ballad, folk-rock style number but then again Natalie Merchant would likely never sing a line like “my porous soul gets hooked with just one…f*ck” (note how perfectly Sage nails that pregnant pause and sibilantly expels the culminating syllable) but with the overriding message being one of self-empowerment and agency: “I’m not your / won’t be your / playground“…
…and then at last there’s the EP’s concluding track which was also its inaugural single “Dilute Me” which veers erratically but arrestingly between fleeting emotional states (synesthesia cut like a knife / shallow water or high tide) and when the song nearly dissolves into a state of evanescence it snaps back just as suddenly with a vocal hook (see the byline up top) that sounds as if it spontaneously popped into the heads of Mila and Sage at once with an alacrity that suggests a shared alien conscious and there’s a good chance you’ll be just as consumed by the moment as they are…
“Dark Blue” music video credits
director: @oliviadecamps
producers: @roya.alidjani@tianacantu
production company: @ladytrapproductions
ad: @emilym_13
upm: @isyouethaaan
dp: @viobensmith
1st ac: @_evan.miller
2nd ac: @bymaggiebrill
steadicam: @steadigroove
gaffer: @ajna.dov
key grip: @alexanderfeldman_dp
grip: @felixbaillyfilm
production designer: @katiebalun
set dressers: @juu.liiana@liliteplan@danielteplan
styling: @coupe.jpg
selected garments: @nodress_online
makeup: @nina_carelli_
hair: @toniallenstyles
pa: @k8balll
bts: @belles_film
editor: @hrishibardhan
color: @nickdaukas
graphics: @borjaschettini
choreographer: @evansagadencky
dancers: @truth3y@li_r0000
special thanks: @tomsidi@jz.film.dp@alizajaw@meagantheepisces@bettergourmet@aframe_nycState Supply @tiptopprops
