After over a decade fronting LA-based deam-pop collective Tashaki Miyaki, Paige Stark is setting out on her own for the first time with the upcoming release of her debut solo EP, Good at Love. Produced by the iconic composer and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, the release strips away some of the layers of fuzz and elaborate production design to provide a starker look at Stark’s lyrics, with the latest cut “Zombie Brain Drain” serving as a perfect example of the songwriter’s creative strength in transforming personal struggles into genre pieces. “The song is about the feeling when you’re so exhausted by the emotional turmoil in a relationship that you become a zombie and the romance dies, never to return,” she shares of the minimal, horror-themed composition.
In addition to Brion’s contribution, the track also features Cherry Glazerr’s Clementine Creevey, who makes an appearance in the track’s black-and-white, Romero-esque video directed by Stark’s longtime friend Fabianne Therese Gstottenmayr. “I asked Clem, another old friend, to be the human we take to the zombie side—since she plays on the song it has an extra fun element,” Stark explains. “Clem and Jon have this sort of guitar dialogue from the solo on out, and I really love the energy of it. The zombie girl gang are all talented artists and dancers I know from the LA underground film and art scene. And Charley [Maxwell] was awesome as our bad guy.”
“We wanted to lean into the fun of horror films like Night of the Living Dead,” director Gstottenmayr adds, “but like if Agnes Varda directed it. Of course zombie girls break into spontaneous choreographed dance sequences before they go in for the kill. Everyone involved brought so much creativity and excitement to this project. Even the groundskeeper at the cemetery stopped to watch in amusement instead of kicking us out.”
Check out the clip below, and pre-order Good at Love ahead of its June 7 release here.
