Video Premiere: “Milk” by Liance

With the personal style of singing that Sufjan Stevens is known for and the (self) harmonization that resembles some of Simon and Garfunkel’s richest work, Liance shares his latest music video, Milk, from his upcoming album The Rat House coming out on November 21^st on Bandcamp and Spotify.The warmth and tenderness shown in this video compliments the track greatly as friends gather in the cold to share a hot meal. 

From the Artist:

“I wrote Milk in my old house, The Rat House, back in Michigan. It uses still scenes from an empty house to illustrate a disintegrating relationship. To create even more dissonance I tuned and played the doubled guitars slightly differently and used a lot of accidentals, while using a bright glockenspiel riff to pull listeners back in again. Spencer Harris, an extraordinarily talented instrumentalist from Virginia, recorded mountain dulcimer, banjo, and mandolin for this recording.

The music video was made by some old college friends who work as TEΔM (Hailey Hansson, Kendra Larsen and Michael Lentz). I’d previously worked with Hailey on another video for Ellie Takes a Bath and respect her vision a lot, so I gave very little direction other than telling them simple visual motifs and my preference for documentary. 

Because of this hands-off approach it was actually half a year before I knew what they’d shot. They’d secretly invited our old friends to a potluck in Grand Rapids and simply filmed that evening as a documentary. It was a straightforward and surprisingly warm interpretation of the song and I loved the contrast between the house full of friends and the snow outside – a universal memory for anybody who’s lived in the Midwest. I live in Southeast England now and miss the snowy winters we’d get in Michigan. There’s a certain drama and affinity that it brings to a community, reminding us that we’re all in this together.” – Liance