• News

• All

Aug 10, 2023 By Kat Ramkumar Photography by Marzena Abrahamik

Tim Kinsella (of Joan of Arc) and Jenny Pulse have shared a video for a new song titled “Nena” which is the latest release from their upcoming album Giddy Skelter. This LP is due out September 8 via Kill Rock Stars. The music video that accompanies it, directed by Jonathan van Herik, follows a vampire’s birthday. Check it out below, followed by some upcoming tour dates.

The featured vampire in the video is not the song’s titular character as Herik explains in a press release that: “‘Nena’ drifts through memories and time in an attempt to find meaning and connections in the chaos of everyday life. What seems simple at first becomes illusory and hard to grasp as time and memory melt together. Do vampires celebrate birthdays?”

Kinsella adds: “Thanks to the many chance operations that we relied on to guide our processes, the music for ‘Nena’ got attached to the song ‘Vera’ from Pink Floyd’s The Wall. After fate determined such attachments, we’d ask ourselves how exactly to make the connection. It could be a half-time outro or inserting a melodic guitar solo. In this case we went with the obvious and followed the name.

We needed a name that was both melodious and that neither of us had any personal associations with. We agreed on the name ‘Nena’ & then the association became ‘99 Red Balloons.’ Addressing that Nena, as determined by the song ‘Vera,’ meant this song was not a cover, but a song about a song.

But then there was another chance operation to apply. This directive was to plainly state the most difficult and painful fact we could think of and make it fit melodically somewhere on the album. And this is the song where that line landed. Its inclusion then shifted the song’s ‘narrative’ with another twist.

We did not mention any of this to the director Jonathan van Herik at any point during the making of the video. Not because we were being coy, but just cuz it never even occurred to us as relevant, let alone necessary, for him to realize his own ideas of what the song means to him.”

“Nena” is preceded by the duo’s singles “Whinny,” “Unblock Obstacles,” which was featured on our Songs of the Week, and “Sun Inspector.”

Read our 2018 interview with Kinsella and his Joan of Arc band member Melina Ausikaitis.

Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse Tour Dates:

9/05 - Cleveland, OH - Mahall’s (supporting Spirit of the Beehive)
09/09 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
10/05 - Detroit, MI - Lager House
10/12 - New York, NY - Knitting Factory

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.