The Sour Notes Ride It Out

The pendulum of daily life, swinging from inspiring, devastating, and the mundane, receives gorgeous representation in the Sour Notes’ video for “Ride It Out.” Shadowing Blacklist and Law & Order: SVU actress Danielle Burgess, the clip finds her experiencing joy in the moments between the grind of modeling and ritzy parties.

The artsy black & white cinematography comes courtesy of founding Sour Notes drummer Travis Emery Hackett, who’s since left Austin’s indie/psych/pop mainstays for a photography career in New York. Provided with tracks from the locals’ upcoming releases, the Finest Sour 7-inch and Darkest Sour LP, Hackett chose “Ride It Out” to soundtrack with visuals. Bandleader Jared Boulanger’s only input: cross French New Wave cinema with Darren Aronofsky.

“It’s about someone who’s blossomed in New York, goes to a lot of parties, and has a celebrity-type profile,” explains Boulanger of the resulting footage. “He wanted to capture the jadedness and mundane-ness of that daily life scenario, but in a beautiful way.”

Emotions communicated in the clip walk hand in hand with the song, wherein towering shoegaze guitars oscillate atop acoustic bedroom pop. Boulanger’s boyish voice wafts a serene refrain:

“This is the best that it gets.
And this ain’t the most that it can hurt,
So give them exactly what they deserve.”

“The song’s about not getting the fulfillment or respect that you’re craving out of the life you’ve set out for yourself, whether it’s in art – in my case – or anything else,” reveals the singer. “Still, you have to embrace what you’ve got right now while you have it.”

“Ride It Out” arrives this fall on the Sour Notes’ fourth single, which also unleashes a unique version of Van Morrison’s oft-covered “Gloria” on the B-side. Following closely behind is the quintet’s sixth LP, Darkest Sour. The Sour Notes play tonight at Hotel Vegas with Crocodile Tears, Desert Culture, and Hex Boyfriend.

Here’s “Ride It Out”: