Lael Neale has released a video for Picasso's Wife, the second single from her album As Killers Do, and she directed it herself. The clip is stop-motion, built from her own paintings, and it was filmed on the kitchen floor of a rented apartment in Lisbon.
The song came out of an underwhelming museum visit. Neale said she tries to be refined and sophisticated but more often feels like a bored child surrounded by too many options and too many people talking as though they know something. The title points at Olga, the subject of Picasso's Large Nude in a Red Armchair, and at the gap between a title that sounds elevated and a portrait that takes its subject apart.
The video was improvised on the day. Neale said she had no idea what she was going to do until filming started, and that Guy Blakeslee suggested working from famous paintings once they were already on the floor. Blakeslee shot both this clip and the one for Slip Away, the album's first single, which was made the same way.
That working method runs through the record itself. As Killers Do was recorded with Blakeslee in the kitchen of a bungalow in Echo Park, Los Angeles, on a Tascam cassette eight-track machine, which is a deliberate limit rather than a shortage of options.
The paintings in the videos are not props made for the shoot. Neale sells the same artwork at her merch table at shows, so the visual side of the project is already part of how she funds the touring side of it.
As Killers Do arrives on 20 November on Consensual Sound, an imprint Neale started herself after three albums on Sub Pop. Going independent at this point in a career is a choice about control rather than about reach, and she has been explicit about why she stopped chasing the numbers.
Speaking about the record, Neale said what is real is becoming harder to discern day to day, and that recent revelations about falsified streaming figures had cooled her interest in followers and sales. She described making music and paintings as what keeps her sane rather than what builds an audience.
The album follows Altogether Stranger, Star Eaters Delight and Acquainted With Night. It is on the release calendar for November, and more from this corner is on our indie hub. We covered Neale signing to a new label and detailing the album earlier this year.
The facts
- Picasso's Wife is the second single from Lael Neale's album As Killers Do.
- Neale directed the stop-motion video and used her own paintings in it.
- Guy Blakeslee filmed it on a kitchen floor in a rented Lisbon apartment.
- The album is due 20 November on her own imprint, Consensual Sound.
- It was recorded in an Echo Park bungalow kitchen on a Tascam cassette eight-track.
- The song was written after an underwhelming museum visit.
- As Killers Do follows three albums released through Sub Pop.
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