For their new video, the wildly underrated Olympia shoegaze punks Broken Water rep their native Pacific Northwest. Home video footage of deer, lush foliage, and tugboats is juxtaposed with clips of the three-piece performing in its usual haze of radicalism. The result is so warm and warped that it’s wonderfully disorienting — much like the band’s new, highly existential album, Wrought, released earlier this month through Night-People Records. Flavorwire is pleased to premiere the clip below.
Broken Water owes the new video to another Olympia native, Japanther’s Ian Vanek, who shot and directed the clip. “He approached us and said he really wanted to make something for us, and we were stoked!” drummer and vocalist Kanako Pooknyw tells Flavorwire.
The Olympia love runs strong, with Pooknyw running off a whole list of local bands to check out: VEXX, Defaceman, GAG, Transfix, and GLOSS, just to name a few. “I love that I live in a community full of friends that choose to live outside the status quo,” Pooknyw says. “We live on the cheap in order to have more time off to create and hang out.”
For Wrought, the band notably worked with Steve Fisk, another musical figure closely tied to the Pacific Northwest. Fisk worked closely with early Sub Pop and K Records before grunge broke, producing such bands as Beat Happening, Soundgarden, and yes, Nirvana.
“I studied multi-track analogue recording with Peter Randlette at the Evergreen State College back in the ’90s,” Pooknyw explains. “Peter and Steve went to Evergreen together I believe in the late ’70s and started recording hi-fi DIY stuff around that time. Ever since I studied under Perter, I had wanted to work at Avast! [Recording Company, storied studio in Seattle] and record with Steve. He is legendary. It was so cool to work with such a knowledgeable engineer.”