Protomartyr have dropped a new single, ‘Elimination Dances’, which will appear on their forthcoming album Formal Growth in the Desert. Following lead track ‘Make Way’, the track arrives with an accompanying video directed by Yoonha Park and featuring dancer Kota Yamazaki. Watch and listen below.
Named after a chapter from a 1950s teen dance manual, ‘Elimination Dances’ references a game where “you get tapped out when you lose the dance,” according to a press release, which felt like an apt metaphor for life. “You might as well keep dancing until the tap comes,” vocalist Joe Casey said.
“My dad once told me ‘Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end the faster it goes,’” Park commented. “That idea along with the lyrics led to the idea of a choreographic pattern that repeats as it grows outward in an expanding spiral. The choreography repeats with each cycle but has to be danced faster and faster to keep pace with the ‘pale youth’ until eventually devolving into chaos. I recently learned that the toilet paper quote was actually by Andy Rooney.”
