Hether Fortune went through a bitter divorce before she made American Tragedy, the latest Wax Idols record. And while she’s been a little coy as to just how directly her personal life informed the album’s creation, there’s no denying the emotionally complicated push and pull of single “Lonely You,” whose video we’re premiering today.
While her band twirls up a siphoning post-punk whorl behind her, Fortune surveys her relationship and the particularly complicated intermixing of longing and desire with disgust and stale love. Director Dustin Senovic’s video mimics Fortune’s spiraling desires. “‘Lonely You,'” he says in a statement, “speaks to the strangulating pain and the self-contradicting relief that comes with ending a love contract—an enigmatic process, inherently boundless and fluid.” Accordingly, he folds her blued-out image over itself, doubles the frame, and forces Fortune’s image into a kaleidoscope of wills, while the singer herself alternately bares her breasts and buries her body in a fur coat.
Whether inspired by Fortune’s divorce or not, it’s a disarming and revealing clip. You can see the video—and Wax Idols’ latest round of tour dates—below.
(Please note that portions of this clip are NSFW.)
Wax Idols tour dates
October
23 – Denver, CO – Juice Church
24 – Lincoln, NE – Knickerbocker’s
27 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
28 – Detroit, MI – Marble Bar (w/ Blood Stone)
29 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Roboto
31 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus (w/ Azar Swan & DJ Becka Diamond)
November
2 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
4 – Austin, TX – Mohawk
5 – San Antonio, TX – Paper Tigers
7 – Phoenix, AZ – TBA (w/ Body of Light & Ascetic House DJs)
8 – Los Angeles, CA – Complex (w/ Pleasures & DJ Shannon Cornett)
Wax Idols’ American Tragedy is out now via Collect.
