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May 12, 2020 The Beths By Christopher Roberts

New Zealand four-piece The Beths are releasing a new album, Jump Rope Gazers, on July 10 via Carpark. Now they have shared another song from the album, “I’m Not Getting Excited,” via a video for the track. Sports Team directed the video, which was filmed under quarantine by each member via stop-motion. Watch it below.

“People always ask ‘are you excited!?’ and it’s a fair question, because exciting things do happen to us sometimes,” says frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes in a press release. “Support slots, overseas tours, music releases. Stuff we’ve dreamed about for years. So the correct answer is always ‘yes.’ But the truth is that deep down there’s a tiny Liz saying, ‘don’t get excited.’ She is certain that anything good that could happen will most likely not happen, because of a freak accident. Or because somebody finally realises that we aren’t worthy, shouts ‘phony!’ and takes everything away. I wrote ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’ last year, well before everything really did get taken away. From everyone. It feels like the song has a new context, but we don’t know what it is yet. And now we all share a blurry, uncertain future.”

Of the video, Stokes says the directors “turned our laundry into a film studio and spent our inside time mastering the art of stop-motion animation. We animated old towels, all the cardboard in the house and The Beths themselves… frame by bloody frame. There’s a lot of scary imagery in the song that we wanted to play on. There’s a madness too, in the contradiction between what the song is about and its frenetic energy. It has defined the lockdown for us—being locked indoors but furiously busy.”

Previously The Beths shared Jump Rope Gazers’ first single, “Dying to Believe,” via a video for the new song. “Dying to Believe” was one of our Songs of the Week.

Jump Rope Gazers is the band’s second album, the follow-up to 2018’s amusingly titled debut, Future Me Hates Me. The Beths feature Elizabeth Stokes (vocals/guitar), Jonathan Pearce (guitar), Benjamin Sinclair (bass), and Tristan Deck (drums). The album was recorded at Pearce’s Auckland studio, where he also produced the album.

A previous press release gave some hints as to the themes on the album: “Stokes’ writing on Jump Rope Gazers grapples with the uneasy proposition of leaving everything and everyone you know behind on another continent, chasing your dreams while struggling to stay close with loved ones back home.”

Read our My Firsts interview with The Beths.

The Beths Tour Dates:

Sun. Nov 8 - Perth, WA @ HBF Park*
Wed. Nov. 11 - Melbourne, VIC @ Marvel Stadium*
Sat. Nov. 14 - Sydney, NSW @ Bankwest Stadium*
Tue. Nov. 17 - Brisbane, QLD @ QSAC Stadium*
Fri. Nov. 20 - Dunedin, NZ @ Forsyth Barr Stadium*
Sun. Nov. 22 - Auckland, NZ @ Mt Smart Stadium*

*w/ Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy

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