Premiere: Tropical Popsicle, “Ghost Beacons”

The moment we saw a bound woman dressed in what looked to be a wedding dress with a painted red target in a room with a tuxedo-clad man waving a kitchen knife, we knew 2013 had its first great video. The noir-ish imagery of the opening credits, a woman fleeing headlights in an alley, has a b-roll feel like Tropical Popsicle are playing it safe. They make darkwave pop and thus the music video should lean towards noir, occult, and plenty of poorly lit, dank rooms. We first noted this last year when Volar released "Ghost Beacons" on 7", noting that Trop Pop "play gooey, light jams, [yet] their songs still sound like they're all having bad trips."

Moon Room Productions finds the uncomfortably weird area between a Kubrickian Eyes Wide Shut party and the blue-blooded entertaining dinner for idiots. It's the bad trip one can barely imagine to be real. Just when it felt safe to let down your guard about the bored and affluent, Tropical Popsicle suggest there's a game they play that you've not heard of involving a pregnant bride, blindfolds and a "pin the tail on the donkey" arrangement.

Tropical Popsicle's debut album Dawn of DeLight is out February 25 on Volar and available to preorder here in limited color vinyl.