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Photo:\u00a0Dan Ozzi<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
PUP have shared a new song, If This Is It, along with\u00a0a video for Concrete.<\/p>\n
If This Is It is a punchy indie-punk track recorded during the sessions for the Toronto band’s latest album, the acclaimed ‘Who Will Look After The Dogs?’, which was released last year.<\/p>\n
In addition to the new song, the band,\u00a0comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula\u00a0and Steve Sladkowski, have also unveiled a surreal, handmade stop-motion video for\u00a0the album track Concrete. The\u00a0clip was created from 2,300 frames using magazine pages, with director Sterling Larose filming\u00a0the band performing before splitting the footage into more than 1,000 frames, which were sent to 13 designers and animators. They transformed the frames into magazine covers, tabloids, fake ads, and zines, all by hand without the use of AI, before being printed and filmed frame by frame in stop-motion. Babcock explained:<\/p>\n
“About a year ago, on our way to Australia, we decided to stop over in Vancouver, visit our pal Sterling, and shoot a video for \u2018Concrete,\u2019 one of our favourite songs off the last record. His concept was mental and ambitious. We did the shoot, and waited for the final product. It didn’t come. Months passed and it seemed like it had disappeared into some technical abyss never to be seen again.<\/p>\n
“Many days I searched the blackhole of my jetlagged memory and wondered if we’d ever even shot the thing. And then a year later, seemingly out of thin air, Sterling (and the video) surfaced. And we love it to death.<\/p>\n
“It took Sterling and 13 designers and animators hundreds and hundreds of hours, physically creating thousands of individual frames, photographing them, animating. We\u2019re fully aware that releasing a video for a song that\u2019s already been out a year is a stupid thing to do. But we don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
“At this point, we\u2019re in an incredibly lucky position with PUP to mostly do whatever we want with this band, and for us, it was completely worth the wait. The video was made with no AI – just immense care, patience, and endless frustration on the part of the artists. We’re proud to be a part of Sterling’s vision and this mammoth project. I hope you like it as much as we do.”<\/p>\n
PUP have been on the road since the release of\u00a0‘Who Will Look After The Dogs?’ and appear at Rock Werchter<\/a> festival in Belgium today (July 2) before UK shows in London, Sheffield and Brighton ahead of their\u00a0set at 2000trees<\/a> next week. They’ll also join Jimmy Eat World<\/a> for a special co-headline anniversary show in Toronto next month, celebrating\u00a0two seminal records, followed by a slot at Chicago’s Riot Fest<\/a> and additional US dates in the fall.<\/p>\n
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