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Nov 11, 2021 By Caleb Campbell

Toronto and L.A.-based artist Louie Short is back tomorrow with his sophomore record, Omw 4ev. Coming after his 2019 debut, Cherry, Cherry, Short’s latest effort pulls his genre-fluid songwriting style even further towards the margins, all while retaining the radically DIY streak that has become so central to his creations.

For Omw 4ev Short found himself drawn to the concept of liminality, or transitional spaces. As he explains, “People are drawn to beginnings and endings, whether it be falling in love and breaking up - emerging artists and artists passing away. Things in the middle of life tend to be neglected. I think that this forgotten middle space is exciting and uncharted. It holds a certain poignancy because it doesn’t have the manipulative magnetism of creation and destruction, birth and death, to grab your attention. It just has itself existing.”

The full album is out tomorrow, but Short has shared the record’s title track and accompanying video today, premiering with Under the Radar.

The album’s title track explores that same concept of liminality in love. Short tributes treasured small moments shared between lovers, moments as simple as taking a walk downtown or watching TV together. Short’s vocals loop in elliptical melodies, fading in and out as shimmering piano lines and twinkling electronics keep the song fluid and changing. As Short describes, “This song basically repeats itself over and over and yet never feels the same. This is how I feel about love.”

Short also has shared regarding the accompanying video: “This is a video about a man in metamorphosis. Please note that the caterpillar -> chrysalis footage was filmed by ME! It is not stock footage, it is very rare and special.”

Check out the song and video below. You can also read our Q&A with Louie Short, where we go into his creative philosophy, his new album, and the track. Omw 4ev is out everywhere tomorrow, November 12 via 444%.

You’ve said of your music, “the genre is songs.” Do you mind explaining your philosophy on that?

The focus on this album is on the song, not on the production. I think a lot of people make music these days piecemeal in their DAW of choice. This is how I made my previous album Cherry Cherry, bit by bit, arranged on a laptop. For this album I wrote songs that existed as songs before ever recording or producing them. I made sure that the chords, melody, and lyrics were interesting on their own and I thought very little about genre or production until I had a song that I thought was worth recording.

You’ve said that when writing the record you were interested in exploring liminal spaces, the space between creation and destruction. Where do you see that theme coming out on the album?

Each track deals with liminality in it’s own way. For example, ‘What Can I Do’, which coincidentally I didn’t write, tells the story of love that is both palpable and unfulfilled. It isn’t created or destroyed, it’s more complicated than that. Similarly the song “Stop Tripping Out” is about an unresolved process, where the protagonist tries to calm someone down seemingly to no avail.

Your latest album follows your 2019 debut, Cherry, Cherry. What are some of the shifts you made creatively that you see reflected in the new album?

I feel like Cherry, Cherry had two directions it was going in and this album leaned into one of those directions. If you listen to both albums it should make sense.

What inspiration did you draw from for the album’s title track, “Omw 4ev”?

I wrote a song and showed it to my girlfriend and she was like, “oh that’s sad”. It wasn’t the feeling I wanted to create in people. It made me wonder why do I feel the need to wrap up stories in sad, conclusive endings? Or why do people immortalize the absolute worst parts of their relationships in songs? It’s not an accurate representation of life. It’s like how people on Yelp are much more likely to write a bad review for a restaurant they went to once than they are to write a good review for a restaurant they love and go to all the time. After that, I really policed my tendency to get sentimental and final in my writing. The first lyric of “Omw 4ev” sums it up I think in saying, “Why wait for love to fade? Why write a bad review?”

I know your music is very much a DIY affair. Did you produce the video for “Omw 4ev” on your own too? What was the creative process for it like?

Yeah, I bought a camera off a nice guy on Kijiji and just started filming stuff. Originally the idea was the caterpillar transforming for 3 minutes because it was such incredible footage. But my friends and I went out to Goderich Ontario for a weekend and it seemed like a good opportunity to put on my grey Calvin Klein suit. Thanks to my very talented friend Isaac Roberts, it was all edited together nicely with some data-mashing madness.