Plenty of artists, inevitably, are compared to Thom Yorke. Yet, it’s the rare musician that merits the connection. Joel Wells certainly counts among the proud few. His otherworldly work drifts somewhere between the sounds Yorke has tapped into throughout his solo work, particularly with ANIMA, all while possessing a feeling all its own: it drifts serenely between the alien and the soothing.
His latest, “Gaslight”, has plenty of the latter and little of the former to offer. After all, it was inspired and written during 2020’s summer of necessitated protests and violence
Reflecting on the track, Wells shares, “‘Gaslight’ is broadly about the idea of collective grief, shame, guilt, responsibility and forgiveness. It reflects on how we move forward in solidarity, in the wake of an atrocity that is particularly divisive.”
On the video for “Gaslight”, Wells says:
“It was filmed predominantly on my phone at the British Museum. I distorted footage of Empirical statues and iconography in combination with blocky graphic shapes from my Critter & Guitari video synth to illustrate the censoring and editing of historical narratives.“
Watch the clip below or listen to “Gaslight” on streaming platforms.
