“The song is representative of the cognitive dissonance required to feel genuinely enlightened while at the same time being so incredibly naive, harmful, and heartbroken.”
Arizona-based grunge/metal eccentrics THE OXFORD COMA offer a new video for “Smack & Temporary Enlightenment,” the song pulled from the band’s Steve Albini-produced second LP, Everything Out Of Tune. The video makes its public debut through a premiere at PopMatters as the band plots a new West Coast tour.
See THE OXFORD COMA’s “Smack & Temporary Enlightenment” video at PopMatters RIGHT HERE.
Guitarist/vocalist Billy Tegethoff, who directed and edited “Smack & Temporary Enlightenment.” offers some insight on the deeply personal meanings in the song: “Bassist Doug Staples and I wrote this song with our band in high school. Not all, but some of us, myself included, got heavily into drugs; it was a symptom of wanting desperately to be able to have depth and credibility as an artist… or at least that’s what I tell myself in retrospect. We used to take ritualistic trips to Empire Ranch National Preserve near Sonoita, Arizona and eat psilocybin. These trips stripped away a lot of layers of learning and certainty and left me with a feeling of incredible fulfillment, peace, and understanding, but I was also on the edge of full-blown heroin addiction; a swamp into which I descended fully shortly after this time and from which I didn’t emerge for several years. Swinging from one extreme of drug experience to the other was jarring and confusing. It had the obvious and inevitable effect of alienating my closest friends and destroying my closest relationships. The song is representative of the cognitive dissonance required to feel genuinely enlightened while at the same time being so incredibly naive, harmful, and heartbroken.”
Tegethoff offers of the video’s creation, “The video was shot in two locations, one of which was the same spot we used to go trip. The other was a scorched patch of forest up by Flagstaff. I think the dichotomy is appropriate. The aerial shots are alternately jarring and revealing of a beautiful landscape. There is no central narrative. It’s just kind of a bunch of loosely connected scenes that (I think) form a coherent whole once it’s over.”
Everything Out Of Tune is out now on limited edition colored vinyl LP and all digital providers; find physical merch options HERE and place digital orders HERE, and see the previously-released video from the album HERE.
Following several short bursts of shows supporting the LP, THE OXFORD COMA is currently booking a widespread West Coast/Western US tour for late Summer. The final venues are currently being locked up and will be announced in the days ahead.
THE OXFORD COMA‘s Everything Out Of Tune delivers a spectrum of effects-drenched tones, teleporting the listener into an altered state of listening. Created over a two-year cycle throughout which the entire band lineup was completely restructured, Everything Out Of Tune is undeniably an album which takes the band’s unique sonics to the next level. The band recorded with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, utilizing the famous producer’s talent and vast arsenal of equipment and instruments, including the same guitars and amps as some of their most influential bands like Nirvana and many others have recorded with. Mixed by Albini and mastered by John Golden at Golden Mastering, the album features guitar from Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable on the lead track, “Trauma (Maybe I’m Forgetting Something.”
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