Jack River is the moniker for Australian singer-songwriter Holly Rankin, who is also a festival curator and director in her native country. Her new EP Stranger Heart is the follow-up to her 2018 debut Sugar Mountain, and is due out February 14 via Nettwerk.
Today we premiere album track “Dark Star,” an electropop jam highlighting Rankin’s distinctive sugar-high voice—with shades of Gwen Stefani’s slightly weepy grunge—and a sultry electric guitar riff trailing Rankin’s lyrics. Directed by Tatjana Hamilton, the visual is hazy and nostalgic, full of retro static flickers and sequins.
Of the track, Rankin says, “‘Dark Star’ is about the feeling of being in someone’s orbit—alone and alive. We wanted the video to reflect that, a performance as a love letter to say goodbye, with the light and movement of a night at the fair. We filmed on some beautiful cameras, and I also took a DV camcorder out late one Saturday night with my best friend and filmed in the street. It was so fun to recreate the feeling of when I first wrote this song—driving in my car age twenty, alone with the night as my blank page.”
Watch the video below.
