Since establishing her psychedelic-country sound with her Nashville-based backing band The Stampede in 2018, Liz Cooper has continued down her own path—first with a move to New York City, then with the release of her debut solo record Hot Sass. The eerie folk sounds heard on that project from 2021 were revisited earlier this year on a loose single called “New Day” which, as it turns out, is the title track to her forthcoming second solo album, arriving February 20.
The news hits today alongside the project’s second single, the gentle, taut indie-folk cut “IDFK.” This latest track sees Cooper explicitly considering her path over recent years, weighing her sense of self in the present against who she once was. “‘IDFK’ is about the connection of the past in the present,” she explains, “the connection between who the main character in the song showed me I am and the person I am becoming, the feeling of a memory and intimacy across time and space. This is a love song to a friend and to myself.”
That journey is cleverly documented in Wes Sterrs’ single-shot music video for the track, which features Cooper in a dimly lit car singing the track into a voice notes app. “I wanted to capture the songwriting process, emotional process and nostalgic longing of memories about someone I miss,” she explains of the concept. “I’m singing into my phone voice memos thinking about this person, writing the song and taking a moment before directly talking to them when I make eye contact with the camera. I eventually close the door and chapter and step into the next car, the next chapter. I wanted this video to feel dramatic yet hopeful and wanted to challenge myself by doing it all in one full take.”
Check out the clip below, and expect New Day to arrive in the new year.
