POP ETC Share Origins of New Jason Schwartzman Collaboration “Slips Away”: Exclusive
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The post POP ETC Share Origins of New Jason Schwartzman Collaboration “Slips Away”: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
Our Origins feature series gives artists a space to share the influences behind their latest release. Today, POP ETC reveal everything that went into their new Jason Schwartzman collaboration, “Slips Away.”
Six years since their last album, indie trio POP ETC are set to return with a brand new LP, Over The Moment. Today, April 28, they’ve released the first single, “Slips Away,” which features spoken-word contributions from actor Jason Schwartzman.
For over half a decade, POP ETC (fka the morning benders) have refrained from releasing a full body of work, instead tiding fans over with regular singles releases and Patreon-exclusive covers. For those who forecasted the “death of the album,” the band’s trajectory seemed to fit right into the narrative, as the meteoric rise of streaming platforms coincided with their break from the LP.
Fans of the record format and POP ETC — of which there must be many — should fear not, however, as the band’s newest album is set to release this year. Our first taste of the group’s first album since 2016’s Souvenirs comes by way of “Slips Away,” a driving indie rock tune complete with acoustic guitar, synth pads, and Schwartzman waxing poetic.
10 years in the making, “Slips Away” deals with lyrical themes of uncertainty, the struggle to let go of the past, and ultimately how, even when well-intentioned, you can bring those you love down with you if you’re not careful. It’s surprising that Schwartzman’s monologue was recorded for a different song, as his musings on lifeguards and old relationships work so well within the context of “Slips Away.”
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Lead singer Chris Chu tells Consequence that Schwartzman came to one of the band’s shows and was “the sweetest guy” when they met. “We exchanged emails and became kind of pen pals over the years, and I would run into him occasionally around LA and NY,” he remembers.
“We had spoken about collaborating for a while, and at some point years back we tried doing this spoken word thing, over an entirely different song,” Chu continues. “It didn’t end up working on that song, but I always loved a lot of what we came up with, and one day when I was working on what would become ‘Slips Away,’ it just sort of popped back into my head.”
Chu recalls feeling a bit anxious about sending it to Schwartzman, but it all worked out in the end. “It worked perfectly to my ears, but I was a little nervous when I sent it to Jason,” he says. “Luckily he wrote back immediately, ‘I love this!'”
Check out “Slips Away” below, followed by Chu’s Origins breakdown.
Spike Jonze’s 2002 film Adaptation:
Spike Jonze is kind of always an inspiration, but this movie in particular I just find to be the gift that keeps on giving. I think when I first saw it I found myself drawn more to the craft of the film. It’s so well made, so well structured and beautifully layered, and touches on such a huge range of emotions.
But watching it more recently, I really connected emotionally with Charlie Kaufman’s process and struggle to “adapt” Susan Orlean’s book, trying to be true to the inspiration and source material, but also trying to think outside the box and not fall into too conventional of an approach. I wrote the first idea for “Slips Away” almost 10 years ago when we were still the morning benders. I’d been frustratingly toying with it, on and off for years, until it finally clicked. A lot of the new album songs have followed a similar path.
Tatsuro Yamashita:
I was lucky enough to live for a while in Japan and I can’t begin to describe all the ways that spending time there has changed my life. But one incredible part of working on music over there has been the amount of amazing Japanese music I’ve been turned onto. It’s naive of me, but I found it hard to believe there would be bands in Japan that are as big as The Beatles, that very few people outside of Japan have ever heard.
Tatsuro is the best, and thankfully is now finding something of a new audience in America with the recent City Pop craze (although I’m hesitant to fully lump him into that category, personally). Everything about his music is amazing, but I really love his sense of melody. I was listening a lot to his album Pocket Music while making this new album. He’s the best!
Pen15:
This show is so good. It kind of perfectly coincided with quarantine for us, and a lot of the timeline of recording this new album. It was hilarious, but I also found it surprising how quickly I let go of the absurdity of the premise of this show, and just felt emotionally captivated and moved by it.
One thing that struck me was how challenging it is being a kid at that age — how you’re expected to kind of be an adult and a kid at the same time. Personally, in middle school, I just wanted to get it all over with and be an adult for good. But now that I’m an adult, I want to go back to being a kid. This song was definitely inspired by that push and pull.
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong:
I loved this book. It feels very personal and specific to Hong’s experience as a Korean American, but it explores issues of identity and racial awareness that I’m constantly struggling with as well, like what it means to be Chinese-American or Asian-American, what it means to be biracial, and what any of those terms even mean. A handful of the songs on this new album deal with these questions more directly, but throughout the album, there is a feeling of groundlessness, of homelessness, of not knowing if and where I fit in. That feeling is definitely a part of “Slips Away.”
POP ETC Share Origins of New Jason Schwartzman Collaboration “Slips Away”: Exclusive
Jonah Krueger
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