Today is a great day to share the news that dream pop artist, Chris Garneau, has returned with a new single and video for the title track from his new album, In Reverse. “In Reverse” tackles the topic of love and what it means to fill this rich emotion. Garneau shared: “‘In Reverse’ is a love song — a missive. It holds past hurt next to a love that bends around time: calm, patient, awake. It’s a quiet victory, without chaos, performance, or the need to fix anything. There’s no dramatic surrender — only recognition, like remembering what love is supposed to feel like, already written into the body.” If you’re enjoying the single and video, please consider streaming the album here.
The song describes love that “bends around time” and feels already written into the body. How did you translate that sense of calm recognition and temporal fluidity into the visual language of the video? Were there specific textures, pacing choices, or imagery that helped embody that feeling of love existing outside of chaos or performance?
Well, in the video I’m literally on all fours with my back arched, so in a way I am physically bending around time. At the same time, it evokes an instinctual, animalistic connection to the body and natural forces. The pose carries layers of meaning—vulnerability, surrender, sensuality, desire, and even submissiveness. Yet there’s also tension within containment, a kind of controlled power, like a predator ready to spring. The tangible August NYC heat, the dense golden sunsets, my own comfort and surrender to the day, to the shoot, to the culmination of two years of work—all of that helped embody love existing outside of chaos. For me, my life just isn’t chaotic, so embracing this love didn’t feel difficult; it felt natural, calm, and inevitable.
You’ve described “In Reverse” as a quiet victory — one without dramatic surrender or the need to fix anything. How did you approach creating a visual that reflects resolution without spectacle? Was there a conscious effort to avoid traditional romantic or cinematic tropes in order to preserve that stillness?
By the time we produced these images and the video, I was in a very different place with the album—much closer to done, and I could see the finish line. I’d had a visual mood board for months, but it wasn’t until we were actually on set that everything felt right. This last return to Brooklyn—the formative city of my late teens and twenties, where I first fell in love on rooftops at sunrise and sunset—wasn’t just nostalgia. It felt like another version of that life, but this time fully lived, with clarity and presence. I’m in a dreamworld and yet really living it. The person I love is right in front of me, and we’re choosing each other, choosing a good life together. These images just feel like me now—I’m in my home, on my couch, made them with my best friends. We weren’t trying to create a world because it’s already here; the world and I move through each other like weeds growing through cracks in a building—not perfect, not made in heaven, but somehow it works.
The album as a whole moves from the residue of a turbulent relationship into new love and clarity. Where does the “In Reverse” visualizer sit emotionally within that arc? Does the imagery lean more toward reflection on what’s been shed, or toward the embodied presence of something newly unfolding?
It leans towards the embodied presence of something new unfolding. I don’t even remember or think much about the turbulent relationship. I feel completely detached from it. It doesn’t feel like it was me. It’s not considered in my life anymore, it’s like a limb that I cut off.