Photo by Joel Wilson

London-based, Melbourne-raised outfit HighSchool returned this week with their nostalgic-fused new single Sony Ericsson. Taken from their forthcoming self-titled debut album, out October 31st, the single tries to make sense of modern day relationships, from texts left on read to the push-pull of love in a social media world. Speaking to the release, they share "Sony Ericsson is about the strange dynamics of modern connection, the games people play over text, and how a single message can spiral into endless over-analysis. A few words on a screen can be pulled apart, read and re-read, and imbued with layers of meaning that may never have been there to begin with. It speaks about the discrepancy between how someone appears on a phone screen versus who they are in real life, and how the digital version of a person can feel both enticing or alluring but also unreal or unknowable. It was one of the first songs we wrote for the album, but the last one we finished. For a long time, it existed as an unfinished sketch, an idea we loved but couldn’t quite crack. We had almost written it off until one session when we pulled it apart, rewrote it, and suddenly it clicked, becoming the twelfth and final song on the record." Take a listen/watch below. 

The track is accompanied by a video directed by Rory Trobbiani and Joel Wilson, which ruminates on the themes in the track as the band explain, “The Sony Ericsson music video is a teen love story that uncovers the hidden sadness and quiet beauty of middle-class suburbia. Its style and tone draw inspiration from Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, Larry Clark’s Bully and Ken Park, and Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-ever. Like these films, it explores the raw, unsettling undercurrents that run beneath seemingly ordinary teenage lives and suburban settings. The result is a narrative that is both stark and beautiful, exposing the loneliness and desperation simmering beneath suburbia’s glossy surface.”

i: https://www.instagram.com/_highschool._