John Pelant has a song he wants to play you. After completing the usual album circuit, Pelant and his band Night Moves spent three years working on the followup to 2012’s Colored Emotions, and in that time, the work that would eventually cohere into Pennied Days went through several permutations: apocalyptic synth à la Flaming Lips, easygoing folk reminiscent of their debut, and so on. Pelant is a tinkerer, but you can’t blame a guy who counts Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, and Todd Rundgren as musical heroes for getting a little obsessive in the studio.
With the help of omnipresent producer John Agnello, Pelant found the elusive sweet spot, and Domino released Pennied Days back in March of 2016. And while the album finds Pelant and his band chipping through a series of sounds—from the Casio soul of “Denise, Don’t Want to See You Cry” to the space-organ pop of “Carl Sagan”—it’s unified by the sophistication of Pelant’s writing and the rich drawl of his voice.
Accordingly, those two characteristics are front and center in “Kind Luck,” whose video we’re pleased to be premiering today. It begins simply—acoustic guitar, clicking keyboard percussion, and that voice, a shadowy soft light falling on Pelant and a comically large pedal board. Like the song, the video is built around deceptively subtle tonal contrasts and guided by exploratory eye, upbeat and charming in spite of its darkness. “Sometimes you can know something, but not actually feel it. This song is about rectifying those differences,” Pelant says.“It’s a song about welcoming ends and loving the other side of finality.”
Check it out below, and should you happen to find yourself in either of the Twin Cities—the band’s home turf—you can catch Night Moves live; they’ll be at the Turf Club in St. Paul on June 21 and the Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis on July 7.
Pennied Days is out now via Domino.
