video premiere: Pavo Pavo – Mystery Hour

Brooklyn group Pavo Pavo, aka Eliza Bagg + Oliver Hill, share the touching Harrison Atkins-directed video for the starry title track from their forthcoming second album, coming in early 2019 on Bella Union. Mystery Hour was written as Oliver and Eliza were ending their six-year relationship, and according to Oliver, what essentially began as a breakup album "became a feedback loop, informing our new roles in each others' lives as we continued to make music together." He tells us about the video's poignant concept:

"For the title track, we wanted to make a video that introduced us as two characters meditating on relationships from all angles, while matching the romantic melodrama of the orchestra and choir with lots of cinematic action and narrative. John, the 7-foot protagonist of the video, is an angel of love and sex, and serves as a superhuman mascot for the record - he represents the search for intimacy and connection. The human heart tattoo on his neck is the core of his power, and within the tattoo lives us, Pavo Pavo, casting spells and guiding his movements as he makes out with everyone in sight."

Watch and listen to "Mystery Hour", which builds into a glorious and stirring climax that sounds a bit like Beach House at their most majestic, widescreen best (and warrants an instant addition to our best songs of the year playlist), below. Mystery Hour is out January 25, 2019, on Bella Union.