Today is a great day to share the latest single and music video from Mother Sun, called “Memory Banker.” The song is a lo-fi, psychedelic blast of nostalgic rock that re-lives the glory days of 70’s rock n’ roll. Lead vocalist Jared Doherty shared:
This song imagines your brain as a teller at a bank, pulling subconscious strings, filing away new information, tugging at the past and basking in the faint glow of faded nostalgia. Its accompanying video was spontaneously shot on the drive home from the studio we were recording at, Little Red Sounds in Vancouver, at about 2 am. Once I started filming the lens slowly unfocused and all the lights turned into beautiful soft circles swimming around the screen. One memory drifts into another on a late night drive through the back of your mind.
If you’ve ready to take a trip into the unknown, join Mother Sun on their musical quest.
I was also able to catch up with the band for a brief interview.
What made you choose “Memory Banker” as this record’s final single? Can you describe its significance?
It shows a chiller side of our music than the previous three singles. As the last track it’s kind of a long exhale at the end of the album. We put it to tape and slowed everything down just before mastering so it’s got this cool hazy feeling.
The video for this track was shot fairly spontaneously, on a drive home from the studio — what inspired you to start filming your journey, and how would you say this visual translates the track’s general message into a visual format?
It wasn’t even particularly meant for this song, I just wanted to capture that late night drive moment back from the studio. The relief of sitting back after a long day. The lights started going out of focus and floating by, and it started looking more like flying through space the more things went out of focus, so I thought it matched the song really well. It relates to the lyrics in the sense of looking into the past with rose-colored frames, the blurry lights and nostalgia adding a glow to memories as time passes.
For anyone who is being introduced to Mother Sun via this record, what would you want them to know about this project and this new LP?
This is our third record! We went to the studio with the intention of recording a heavier album than the previous two. As usual we started the songs live off the floor, with friends joining us tracking the beds on double drums and baritone guitar on a few songs. A string quartet and horns were added later. We stitched together short transition tracks from old jams we’d recorded to tape and ambient phone recordings to take the listener from one track to the next, fleeting side notes from the band’s wandering mind en route to the next station.
Holistically, what themes would you say run throughout this new record? Is there a general idea that holds everything together?
It’s about the power of thought in controlling our mental well being, the way you frame things and how that impacts your reality. The push and pull of the insane / mundane pace of modern life and awareness and presence as a counter to that. The opening and closing tracks kind of hold things together thematically – the relaxed, optimistic departure of a new train of thought in the morning, and the careful selective editing of an exhausted, imperfect memory at the end of a long day.