VIDEO PREMIERE: friendships take a nihilistic nosedive on ‘happyness’

August 11th 2020

Visual artist Misha Grace and songwriter Nic Brown make a grand and appropriately experimental return as ‘friendships’. Flirting with the lines of what is palatable, they ask their listeners to be bold and take a journey with them on their new single ‘happyness’.

A pairing as unique as friendships has an equally unique origin story. Their 2016 debut album ‘Nullarbor 1988-1989’ received much critical acclaim and led to tours and festivals alongside the likes of Erykah Badu and Thundercat. But after a show at the end of 2017, the pair drifted apart for 8 months. A chance reunion at a house party saw them talking about new projects and led to a realisation that their personal works complemented each other perfectly. Fast forward almost 3 years and they’ve completed their follow up record ‘FISHTANK’, slated for a Sept 30 release.

The lead single ‘happyness’ is a result of deep personal interrogations, and provides what the pair describe as “a false prophecy of hope”.

“It comes at a time when you are so disconnected from yourself that you repeat the propaganda so you and others don’t realise that your cogs have stopped moving. Your shell is in power saving mode with limited repetitive social cues, but inside you’ve transformed into a horse that’s infinitely falling in a vortex. Imagine that!”

The video for ‘happyness’ documents the highs and eventual lows of a night of hotel room debauchery. Grainy, gritty and increasingly ominous, it works as a fascinating case study in the union of visual art and music, and is testament to the pair’s newfound working relationship.

Their forthcoming album ‘FISHTANK’ was developed over many a late night, where Grace and Brown experimented with each other’s ideas and constantly pushed each other’s artistic boundaries. Of the resulting album, the pair say:

“FISHTANK is a concept set on a non-linear timeline between the blurring of two worlds. The physical present (your world) and an alternative present reimagined and interpreted in fantasy known as FISHTANK. The narrative follows the descent of an individual through loss of self. A cold decline of skin shedding, emptiness and despair to come full circle at rebirth. Each track and video is a movement or scene cataloging each movement on the descent.”

Bold, intellectual, and daring to go where most artists would never, friendships have well and truly found their own lane.

Watch the brand new video for friendships’ ‘happyness’ below, ahead of the release of their new album ‘FISHTANK’ due out September 30.

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