When Tokyo Police Club frontman Dave Monks released his debut solo album in October, it felt like the culmination of a long and lonesome journey. Where his releases with TPC can be described as frenetic and often blithe, On A Wave showed signs of weariness and aged conversations. It was the first time that we were invited inside, past the bubbly facades, deeper into the mind of the seasoned musician. An invitation he extends once again with the new music video for the album's title track, premiering on EARMILK today.
"On A Wave" is a slow track, taking its time with deliberate strikes of remedial piano keys and hushed drums. Though the lyrics rely heavily on imagined visuals—"I crashed over a rock and fell out on the shore / I sank into the earth and dripped down in the core"— their soft but purposeful delivery tell more than any visual ever could. Perhaps a line of thought when creating the music video, as Monks drives through filmed sceneries, uneventful yet telling all the same. Though they may seem aimless, there is a kind of inspiring peace within them. An inexplicable order of things that seems to point to a destination, regardless of whether you know it yet or not. A destination that Monks finds himself going back to. "There is something about 'On A Wave' that I can always relate to a new way," he shares with me over email. "The video adds to that for me, sparking my imagination in new ways by tying different metaphors together in my mind. The lyrics about the water cycle, the skeleton in the video, the car diving into the lake, the ambiguous 'you' in the song, the woman waving. Even though I was on set all day making it, watching it now, it feels like one of those dreams packed with meaning and clarity that lives with you for months."
You can catch Dave Monks on his new spring tour dates at these select cities:
02/28 – London, ON @ Rum Runners
02/29 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
04/25 – Victoria, BC @ Lucky
04/26 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore
04/28 – Calgary, AB @ Commonwealth
04/29 – Edmonton, AB @ Temple
05/01 – Saskatoon, SK @ Alt House
05/02 – Winnipeg, MB @ Handsome Daughter
Connect with Dave Monks: Spotify | Instagram | Twitter
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