Wild Pink, the vehicle of John Ross, have revealed the details of a new album: it’s called A Billion Little Lights and will arrive on February 19 via their new label home of Royal Mountain Records. That still seems like quite a way away, but Wild Pink have gifted us the beautiful single “The Shining But Tropical”, about which John Ross tells us:
“It was inspired by Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” as well as “If I Needed You” by Townes Van Zandt, this song is named for a grim retirement home in Florida. It’s about somebody who was born sheltered realizing how large the world is and how unimportant they are. Julia Steiner’s vocal contributions brought the song to fruition, and it was a lot of fun to make.“
“The Shining But Tropical” comes blasting out on neon synths and a stadium-sized guitar-and-drum combination that is immediately redolent of The War on Drugs or Bruce Springsteen. When Ross starts to sing though, his humble voice and words bring everything in tighter and give it a feeling of something personal and profound. He wraps luminous imagery around contemplations of existence, which really soars when set to this anthemic sound.
The video for “The Shining But Tropical” stars Annie Murphy, who was recentlty awarded an Emmy for her performance in Schitt’s Creek, and it was filmed at her family’s rural Ontario cabin. She says:
“The previous owner was a woman named Mrs. Clark who lived there with her husband and sons in the 1940’s. Though she had them as company, they all worked outside of the house, and most of the time she was very much alone, with no electricity and no running water. After many years of isolation and many long, dark winters, she walked into the woods one afternoon and killed herself... This is a video loosely based on Mrs. Clark’s story. When the crew set up the camera’s for the first shot in the cabin, the monitor screen just showed static. Mike [McLaughlin, director of photography] was truly baffled and insisted he’d never seen this happen before. That’s when my Uncle Pat stepped in and called up the stairs “Hi Mrs. Clark. It’s me, Patrick. We’re here to make a little film about you. It’s respectful and nice and is telling your story, so we hope you don’t mind”. Five seconds later, the monitor started working. Thanks Mrs. Clark, I hope you like what we made!“
Wild Pink’s new album A Billion Little Lights comes out on February 19 via Royal Mountain Records. Find the band on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.
