The track features on the trio's ‘Companion’ EP, which came out last week through Arbutus Records and followed up last year's ‘Deep in the Iris’ album. Check out the video, which was accompanied by a note from the band's Raphaelle Standell-Preston, below:
The video started with the desire to film in Los Angeles. I was spending the winter there, and was drawn to the opposing feelings that the city gave off: cluttered though spacious, freeing yet difficult, palm trees in a desert. The song itself sounded like the push and pull of all these things.
My roommate at the time, Maria-Ines, is a director. She agreed to make a video with me over a weekend, on a shoe string budget. I assured the band, despite having never produced a video before, that it could be done. Maria-Ines hung out of a car window filming as her partner drove the freeway, our roommate spritzed my face for the wet-sheet-scenes, my talented actor-friend Bob agreed to make-out with me, the girl from the donut shop let us film in secret, and the editor, Mark – who had just recently become a best friend – did us a huge best friend favour…… "Joni" is the culmination of people being excited to make something together.
Symbolically, the song is about wanting to be fine with not knowing where you’re headed, not knowing how things are going to end up. It's the desire to make a "home" within yourself when you’re say – living out of a suitcase in a van, your relationship is ending, or you’re dealing with whatever difficult scenario life is throwing at you. The ye olde question – Can we be ok even when everything outside of us is not?
More personally, the video explores a relationship ending: a couple strives to reclaim their individuality while trying to stay close together, the battle and beauty of what it’s like to be in a partnership. It's to be bored sometimes though still in love, to sometimes want to run away, scared to actually part because your whole world feels so wrapped up in them. Making this video was a testament to the song's lyrics – “We don’t know where we are going, I want to be fine with not knowing darling”… None of us knew if this would work but we all dove in, trusting our guts. Here is the outcome for that kind of instinctual trust – "Joni" !!
Braids will return to the UK in June for a headline tour and a set at Glastonbury.
Braids Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Fri June 17 2016 - GLASGOW Hug and Pint
Sat June 18 2016 - MANCHESTER Soup Kitchen
Sun June 19 2016 - OXFORD O2 Academy Oxford
Tue June 21 2016 - BRIGHTON Patterns
Wed June 22 2016 - BRISTOL Start The Bus
Thu June 23 2016 - LONDON Pickle Factory
Mon June 27 2016 - NORWICH Arts Centre
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