“Castaway was a record born out of frustration.” Tashaki Miyaki singer Paige Stark says; “I felt stuck in every single aspect of life, and writing was my way of venting.”
The trio’s aforementioned second album, Castaway, will be with us come July 2nd – you’ll find pre-order details below; but let us turn to the matter in hand, the Laurel Canyon grooves of their latest single, “Wasting Time” – in which Paige rails against a someone or a something that’s playing her along, doubt and that moment of pre-revelation as your brain spurs you into action: “Can’t get these thoughts out of my head,” is the hook Paige sings, bittersweetly, a piano lick that’s part The Band, part Steinman, laying the bedrock alongside interjecting guitars.
Paige says: “This song is kind of its own thing. It was one of the last songs I wrote for the record, and I wasn’t sure it fit the vibe, but in the end we decided it was nice to have variety and different colors and feels on the record.
“It’s a song about anxiety and I wanted it to feel really wild. I wanted to combine what we do with a kind of power pop vibe. I imagined Keith Moon-style drums, and I don’t really play like that; so I invited my friend Richard Gowen to play drums on this song.
“I like that it has a different energy. I wanted to create a kind of 70s’ feel on this song but have it still feel right now, and I think we got that energy. The sonic inspirations were The Kinks Lola vs Powerman… and Big Star’s #1 Record.”
And if you’ve been picking up on our recent coverage of Tishaki Miyaki, you’ll know they have a thing for a stylish video – as you might expect, in the city that brought us Hollywood; check the singles “Castaway” and “I Feel Fine” for further supporting evidence of that assertion.
“Wasting Time” is no different; Paige says: “This song is the most upbeat and playful on the record, so I wanted to make something fun and special.
“This video was made for my eight-year-old self. It’s inspired by a bunch of movies I watched as a kid: The Watcher In The Woods, Practical Magic, The Witches of Eastwick, Teen Witch, The Craft, and of course the TV show Charmed.
“I wanted to play around with ancient film tricks – so being able to pop-disappear was the perfect fit.
“We shot in the Central Coast of California, which is one of my favorite places on Earth. I have been going there since I was a kid and it has a magical quality for me … it’s the Snoqualmie to my Twin Peaks. As a kid visiting, I dreamed up all kinds of stories, so it was super fun to bring that vision to life.
“This is a collaboration with DP [director of photography] Arlene Muller (who also shot “Gone” and “Castaway”); we shot on 16mm on two different cameras, so there’s some different textures in the video. We got super lucky to get so much dreamy fog as well.”
“As an album, Castaway casts a plumb line line back to the Shangri-Las and Shirelles through Slowdive and a little of the cracked glamour of Hole; taps into Best Coast’s (to me, squandered) early promise; the Vivian Girls, even. It’s a very LA record, having an instinctive, unforced glamour, but on many tracks you can sense the desert at its back, whispering with a lightly acid alt.country,” – says us, no less, with our full review being published on the morn of June 28th. Watch out for that.
We continue: “It’s also never overplayed, quite consciously is reined in; is there a louder, more brash record in here fighting to get out? There quite possibly is. And that would also entirely miss the point. Tashaki Miyaki’s second channels a pop purity unashamedly, and quietly. A dreamy late night record with a lover; a Sunday morning groove; an album for a freeway cruise with no particular place to go, it all works. Embrace the sugar-in-the-veins hush.”
Tashaki Miyaki’s Castaway will be released by Metropolis Records digitally and on limited edition pale blue vinyl on July 2nd; pre-orders are now being taken at Bandcamp.
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