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Oct 26, 2016 By Christopher Roberts Sleigh Bells

Sleigh Bells (Alexis Krauss and Derek E. Miller) are releasing their fourth album, Jessica Rabbit, on November 11 via Torn Clean/Sinderlyn. At the end of August the band released a video for “It’s Just Us Now” and at the beginning of the month the band shared “I Can Only Stare.” Now the latter also has a video. Feature filmmaker Alex Ross Perry (Listen of Philip, Queen of the Earth) makes his music video directing debut, co-directing with the Miller. Miller says in a press release that the “video follows three doomed women, all played by Alexis.” That includes Krauss as a suicidal bride. Watch it below.

Perry had this to say about the video in a press release: “I had never been asked to direct anything, at all, ever, prior to Derek reaching out via Instagram about whether or not a collaboration would be something I might consider. I was flattered, and immediately interested. I knew from their prior videos that Sleigh Bells had a particular aesthetic and I was interested in finding ways to bring my working methods to that table. Then instantly, I felt this was a song I could hear a hundred or so times in the filming and editing, which also proved necessary.

“From our first conversation, it was clear that Derek and Alexis had a blessedly specific vision for how this video should look, and feel. It was almost like being asked to direct something somebody else had written. However the extent to which the band trusted me to realize these ideas, from shooting on my preferred format of Super 16mm film with my regular cinematographer Sean Price Williams to using rear projection instead of green screen for certain scenes, made me feel like an equal partner whose ideas pushed the concept to places no other director might have pursued.”

Miller added: “The video follows three doomed women, all played by Alexis. It’s bleak but hopefully inspiring, too. Most of us have probably felt like one or all three of these characters at some point in time. I know I have. Making this was cathartic. We had the privilege of working with Alex Ross Perry, one of my favorite young writer/directors, Sean Price Williams (badass Director of Photography) and a really, really great crew. Alex’s last film, Queen of Earth, was one of my favorites of 2015. There’s a tense, ominous quality to it which I hoped he would bring to the video. He did. His decision to shoot on Super 16mm film helped avoid the slick crispness we had grown tired of with digital cameras. It was a great experience. And a huge debt is owed to Robert Richardson, my favorite cinematographer. We ripped Mr. Richardson off big time for the rear projection screen performance footage.”

Jessica Rabbit, the follow-up to 2013’s Bitter Rivals, is named after Roger Rabbit’s Kathleen Turner-voiced femme fatale wife in the beloved 1988 Disney live action/animation hybrid film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It contains two of the three songs they’ve released in the last year (“Hyper Dark” and “Rule Number One”). “Hyper Dark” was shared in July and “Rule Number One” was released in June. A third song not included on the album, “Champions of Unrestricted Beauty,” was released back in December.

Sleigh Bells Tour Dates:

10/27/16 London, UK @ The Dome - SOLD OUT
11/11/16 San Diego, CA, USA @ Observatory North Park
11/12 - 11/13/16 Los Angeles, CA, USA @ Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival
11/15/16 San Francisco, CA, USA @ The Independent—SOLD OUT
11/16/16 San Francisco, CA, USA @ The Independent—SOLD OUT
11/18/16 Portland, OR, USA @ Wonder Ballroom
11/19/16 Seattle, WA, USA @ Neumos—SOLD OUT