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Sep 10, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Vivian Girls

Vivian Girls broke-up in 2014, but now they have reunited and are releasing their first new album in eight years, Memory, on September 20 via Polyvinyl. Now they have shared another song from it, “Sludge,” via a video for the track. Alex Ross Perry directed the video, which appears to have been shot on VHS and features the band performing in the desert, messing around in the suburbs, and watching a video of themselves. Watch it below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Perry recently directed the film Her Smell (starring Elisabeth Moss) and says Vivian Girls were an influence on the film.

Perry had this to say about the video in a press release: “I just counted: there are four different photos of Vivian Girls in the look book I made for Her Smell.

“So if you had told me when I was first seeing them at Death By Audio (or was it Union Pool?) in 2008 (or was it late 2007?) that over a decade later, we’d be collaborating on a music video, I would have been alarmed at the specificity of this prophecy.

“The notion was to invent a video for ‘Sludge’ that honored The Valley, toying with suburban nothingness and alienation, honoring filming locations from E.T. that are still emanating traces of decades-old magic.

“To explore the dichotomy of light and dark, mortal and immortal, self and self. Of then and now…:

Previously Vivian Girls shared Memory‘s first single “Sick.” Then they shared another song from it, the refreshing shoegaze blast “Something to Do,” via a video for the track that features the band members frantically running around Los Angeles looking for each other. “Something to Do” was one of our Songs of the Week.

In their initial run Vivian Girls released three albums (2008’s Vivian Girls, 2009’s Everything Goes Wrong, and 2011’s Share the Joy). The only constants in the line-up have been guitarist Cassie Ramone and bassist Katy Goodman. The current line-up sees the return of drummer Ali Koehler, who was with the band in the Everything Goes Wrong era and replaced original drummer Frankie Rose (but was later replaced by the band’s third drummer Fiona Campbell). On September 20 Polyvinyl are also reissuing on 180-gram colored vinyl the band’s first two albums (Vivian Girls and Everything Goes Wrong), which were originally released by In the Red.

Since splitting up, Goodman has released several albums with La Sera, Ramone has released two solo albums and two albums with Kevin Morby as The Babies, and Koehler released two albums with Upset. Vivian Girls began playing again in spring 2018 and went into the studio last fall with producer Rob Barbarto (Kevin Morby, The Fall).

A previous press release described the new album as such: “Memory is an album filled with personal reflections on toxic relationships, the false promise of new love, mental health struggles, and finding ways to accept oneself amidst it all. Fittingly, the sonic textures of the album match this sense of desperation and longing. It’s a loud, snarling journey and there’s a sense of streamlined direction and intensity to the performances: it sounds like a band returning to a core idea of itself.”

Revisit our 2008 interview with Vivian Girls.

Vivian Girls Tour Dates:

10/04 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent
10/05 - Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory OC
10/06 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
10/17 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
10/18 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
10/20 - Somerville, MA @ Once Ballroom
10/25 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
10/26 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
11/01 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/02 - Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
11/03 - Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater

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