On the new Oceanator single “Bad Brain Daze,” Elise Okusami battles isolation with some help from her friends and labelmates—a circle that keeps growing even going into year three of the pandemic. After the frank, plainspoken lyrics and garage rock riffing of her 2020 debut album Things I Never Said landed her a deal with Polyvinyl, Okusami hit the road with Jeff Rosenstock, who plays saxophone on the new track. “It felt like going on tour with a bunch of friends,” says Okusami of the experience. “It felt cool to know that even as shows get bigger, we could still have a little community.”
That cohort also comes in handy when facing down your homebound anxiety, as Okusami does in the darkly comic, Chris Farren–directed video for “Bad Brain Daze.” While she struggles with her smartphone, an army of skeletons, and the tragic demise of her friend Rosenstock at the hands of cartoon animals, she’s joined on the soundtrack by a legion of gang vocalists featuring members of Groupie, Bad Moves, Maneka, The Sonder Bombs, Long Neck, Late Bloomer, and Alright. “It’s a chorus of friends all going through it,” she says. “It felt nice to have that connection, even if it was pieced together with emails of files.”
“Bad Brain Daze” is the first single from Oceanator’s forthcoming sophomore record, Nothing’s Ever Fine, slated for an April 8 release. Co-produced by Okusami with her brother and long-time collaborator Mike as well as Bartees Strange, it picks up where Things I Never Said left off: with more intensely relatable, apocalyptic earworms, and a bigger family of survivors to share in them.
