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Apr 25, 2022 By Caleb Campbell

Earlier this month, Nashville indie folk outfit Dallas Ugly released their debut album, Watch Me Learn. After first meeting in university and later going their separate ways, Owen Burton, Eli Broxham, and Libby Weitnauer reunited in Nashville at the start of the pandemic. Under the first lockdowns, the trio began crafting the winding country-tinged soundscapes that make up their debut record, meditating on the adventures, misadventures, and missed chances of young adulthood.

The full record is out now, and today Dallas Ugly have shared a video for one of the album’s highlights, “Sleight of Hand,” premiering with Under the Radar.

With “Sleight of Hand” Dallas Ugly creates their own style full of shimmering magic, crafting a work of fractal guitars, pastoral melodies, and glowing harmonies. Weitnauer’s vocals have echoes of Adrienne Lenker’s sleight airy lilt, but they are given a different character thanks to the track’s delicate layering and playful guitar lines. The track constantly flashes between plaintive unadorned vocals and rich harmonies, enlacing into a lithe, ever-shifting feel.

Meanwhile, the accompanying video captures the same combination of easygoing charm and offbeat sensibilities, with the band dancing, trading a pair of sunglasses, and waving goodbye, all with the same deadpan stare. It’s a narrow balance of contrasts, one that the band manages to execute effortlessly.

As Weitnauer explains, “This song went through many iterations but ultimately, I always envisioned it as a danceable song about the loneliness that accompanies mental illness. I’ve always found that in the throes of an anxiety episode, I find myself going about my days repeating to myself, “I’m fine, I’m feeling fine, everything’s fine, etc.,” over and over again. It becomes a mantra. And it’s lonely because no one else can occupy that panicked headspace with you. The tenses in the song shift often because I sometimes find myself hyping my brain up as though I have no control, and I might as well be talking to another person.”

Check out the song and video before. Dallas Ugly’s debut album Watch Me Learn is out now.