San Francisco post-punk band Octavian Winters released the music video for their latest single “Surreal” yesterday.

The visual, which can be seen below, was directed by Jay Adams with vocalist Ria Aursjoen providing the video’s concept. Aursjoen said this about working on the song:

“Randy Gzebb and Stephan Salit first created the slow, melancholy progression that was to be the core of 'Surreal'. To me, it had a beautifully dark and watery feel, like being caught at night on a foggy ocean. The first words that came to me as I was working up the vocal melody were “it’s surreal, so find a way”, and I thought it was curious that I couldn’t seem to get away from those words and make anything else feel right.

Usually I will start with the melody and placeholder lyrics but, in this case, it came at once from the start and those words stuck. I started to unspool the feeling behind them: the idea of being disconnected from everything and everyone, and feeling like you can’t quite put your finger on objective reality. I feel this is a distillation of many people’s experiences over the last three years of lockdowns and schism. The song also explores the theme of the “in between” or existing in a state that is neither here nor there, and in which it is impossible to tell what is real and what are just projections."

“Surreal” comes from Octavian Winters’ forthcoming EP The Line or Curve, which will be released on Friday 13 via Stratis Capta Records. Pre-orders for the release can be made here.