Over the past 15 years, we’ve watched Danny Lee Blackwell’s Night Beats project evolve from chaotic garage rock to finely tuned country R&B and raga-rock all while maintaining the psychedelic glow and Keep-Austin-Weird energy that’s followed the songwriter across albums dreamed up in Texas, Nashville, LA, and beyond. As the sonic vocabulary he demonstrates grows, so, too, does the breadth of the visual world he conjures as his songwriting skills develop to more lucidly portray his ideas.
Case in point, Night Beats’ epic new single “Behind the Green Door” initially came together last year as visions of “dusty roads and dimly lit dance halls” gave way to the track’s buzzing instrumental. “I wanted the guitars to shimmer like heat waves on an open road, the rhythm to pull like footsteps across a wooden floor, soaked in smoke and neon,” Blackwell shares of the track, which maintains a sense of deep intrigue as it drones along for a full five minutes. “The lyrics followed, drawn from past and present—unwavering love, transcendence. The ‘green door’ is that threshold between devotion and disillusionment. The story lives not just in the words, but in the tones and textures, if uncovered.”
As if this imagery isn’t striking enough in your mind’s eye, Blackwell made his directorial debut with the track’s music video, which takes cues from the vibrant interiors and cult-horror imagery of the original Suspiria. Check it out below, and expect the “Behind the Green Door” 7-inch (which features a cover of the track by an artist named Rah John, whom Blackwell met outside of Thailand, as the B-side) to arrive on April 11 via Suicide Squeeze.
