Just who are you exactly when no one’s around? When boredom strikes and there’s no one to entertain in your company, it simply means you can give in to your weirdest, most impulsive traits without restraint. It can make you do silly things, small of acts of rebellion that might seem contradictory to the person the outside world may perceive you as. This very thought alone can be at times an uncomfortable and intrusive one.
On the aptly titled “How To Feel Uncomfortable” – an impish slice of freak folk – songwriter Dana Gavanski explores this query with playful abandon. In the video, we see her haunt a rather nondescript house like a ghost in purgatory, acting out quaintly archaic expressions of boredom. These days, most people would break out the smartphone without second guessing. By contrast, watching Gavanski frolic around these claustrophobic spaces is rather cartoonish. One funny conclusion here could be: over time, we’ve become more boring at being bored out of our minds.
“I realized, that in order to become stronger, I needed to get used to being uncomfortable,” Gavanski comments on the song. The lyrics seem to address this as well: boredom can be nothing more than a green light to break out of the habitual.“Stand too close, face in your phone / it’s scrambling your mind / tired of your zombie glow / soaking up your eyes.”
“How To Feel Uncomfortable” is the first little peek at Gavanksi’s new album Late Slap, which is out via Full Time Hobby on April 5th 2024. “The album holds together the seemingly disparate aspects of my character that I have sometimes tried to repress,” says Gavanski. “With this album I’m letting them into the room, celebrating them for all their strangeness – a strangeness which I think we all, on some level, share.”
You can preorder Late Slap here on various formats.
For now check out the video for “How To Feel Uncomfortable” below.
