So your best friend, your guidance counselor, and Patti Smith have all told you, “Go for it!” Just move to New York, hustle for a year or two, keep working at it, and eventually it’ll all pay off, you’ll be a well-off artist or musician for sure. Lukewarm response to your work? No worries — you’re ahead of your time, like Jandek, Van Gogh — nay, Jesus…right?
Fuck no! There are literally thousands of us in NYC for whom this isn’t paying off whatsoever, and although it sort-of-has or eventually will for some, it’s more apparent every day that our only TV appearances will be five-second slots in the documentaries about our friends who do make it. In the meantime, what do we do?
Thus, does the camera in Hot Sugar’s latest video “Sinkies” begin rolling. Jack, a would-be somebody about to turn 30 with fewer options and more bad habits than he had five years ago. Rose, a pill-popping layabout with too much money, a laptop, and a pet snake. Will they meet?
Rough drafts of texts written and scrapped, half baked scams, small time dealing, big time using, and lots and lots of time spent staring at screens — all these and more form the backdrop of the video. Sound-wise, it feels like a video with background music rather than a music video, which makes sense given that Sugar’s experiments frequently are backing tracks on Broad City. If Jon Brion had grown up listening to rap in the 90s, and had a MIDI keyboard and a laptop, the result might be something like the melodic latter half of the video. The diversity of individual sounds used and atypical structure keep “Sinkies” interesting and fresh - not to be overlooked are the sounds in the first half, layered and FXd cityscape natural sounds that provide an uneasy backdrop for the tense footage.
The ship on which they’re sailing, New York City, is at this moment how everyone viewed the Titanic after it set off on its maiden voyage. Invincible, too big to fail - the future. Then it hit an iceberg, and the first-class passengers got into the lifeboats and bailed. What becomes of our Rose and Jack? See for yourself.
Check out the video and Hot Sugar’s new album, God’s Hand, out this past Tuesday on Break World Records.
• Hot Sugar: http://hotsugar.tv
• Break World Records: http://www.breakworldrecs.com