Snuff Redux Visualizes Bittersweet Nostalgia with “The French Press” Music Video (KEXP Premiere)

Nostalgia’s fickle. In one sense, there’s a comfort in remembering times long gone. But those same feelings can easily be spun on their head to make you long for what you can no longer have. Sometimes the line between good and bad memories is blurred.

In the opening verse of “The French Press” by Seattle act Snuff Redux from their upcoming album Denim American, vocalist Skyler Ford sets a scene: “It started on a sunny Sunday/It was the day that Lou Reed died/I was sitting on a bench with a French press/Wishing I was in Paris again.” The dichotomy between a beautiful day with a cup of coffee against death and longing is immediately striking. He quickly turns his thoughts to someone who “made him smile once.” And so the downward spiral of nostalgia sets in to the tune of graceful swells of reverb, a guttural bass drone, and bright flickering notes of an electric guitar.

The song itself already conjures up a lot of intense feelings and the music video only heightens those ideas, courtesy of director Lauren Rodriguez. I hesitate to want to write much more about the emotions the song conjures because Rodriguez does such a beautiful job visualizing these abstract feelings. Dazzling prismatic colors superimpose over shots of flowers, bus stops, mirror, and features sporadic shots of a woman smoking and doing her hair while looking in the camera. It all feels very dreamlike – or maybe like a daydream, letting your mind wander to something or someone else that you can’t quite reach (or as Ford puts it, “wanting to see the sunrise through your eyes.”)

"I guess, for me, when I heard that song I related a lot to it,” Rodriguez tells KEXP.” I think we (Skyler and Lauren) are around the same age and I remember the day Lou Reed died and being in love and missing someone and how the quiet moments that felt so small you knew they meant the most. I wanted to capture that feeling, the flashbacks of being in some other minds mysteries. Thought a lot about the sentiment of wanting to see the sunrise through their eyes and what it’s like to truly miss someone for their perspective.”

Watch the video below.

Denim American is out June 8. Pre-order the LP now. The band will host the album release show on June 7 at Chop Suey with DoNormaal, Great Spiders, and Salt Lick.

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