VIDEO: French Cassettes Premiere 'Santa Cruz Tomorrow' Video

French Cassettes released their latest single, "Santa Cruz Tomorrow" today, premiering a video, directed by Vanessa Pla, via FLOOD. The track is featured on the San Francisco quartet's upcoming sophomore album Rolodex, set to arrive December 11 via Tender Loving Empire. Watch the video via YouTube + pre-order Rolodex here.

Watch the video!

Discussing the single, songwriter/vocalist Scott Huerta stated, "Most of the song came from fooling around on my friend's Omnichord, which has a sound that's pretty hard not to love. So I tried to keep that charm when writing the rest of the tracks' instruments. I was obviously sleep deprived to feel like singing about the end of a past relationship and a 5th grade project I made on The Donner Party in the same song.

Regarding the video, Scott added, "When thinking about ideas for the video I recalled how one of my favorite musicians said they once wanted to write 100 songs for an album and fell short. So I thought it would be funny if someone did the same thing but went on national television to brag about it first and could only finish one."

Director Vanessa Pla chimed in, "I had a great time jumping into Scott's lucid dream to create this 16mm hallucination. Scott's a great dancer, whether he wants to admit it or not. He told me in confidence that he could fly - so naturally I made sure we caught it on camera.

Also... I really loved the way the animations turned out - created by my Chilean friend, Sebastián Bisbal."

Scott spent two years living beneath a stairwell in San Francisco (for $200 a mo.), tinkering away til 4am every night in search of songs that he felt were all his favorite song ever. On the brink of a nervous exhaustion breakdown, Huerta finally shared the material with his bandmates, brother/bassist Thomas Huerta, drummer Rob Mills and guitarist/producer Mackenzie Bunch, and was met with unanimous approval. Relieved that he had not completely cracked, the long process began again, when turning demos into a LP. But the final results were worth all the anxiety.

The songs that were eventually stitched together from these sessions are hook-filled and rooted in pop. But they're also layered and intricate recordings: complex vocal harmonies and counter-harmonies, Mills' inventive percussion, every shade of clean and fuzzy guitars Bunch stacked up like an orchestra. These uncommonly majestic, esoteric pop forms serve as the perfect delivery service for Scott's playful and verbose lyrics, which are often presented as semi-autobiographical puzzles.

Taken together, the eight tracks and 24 minutes that make up Rolodex are an epic statement of purpose in a decidedly taut package. One that brought a band back together, more mature and more ambitious than ever. One that has been 14 years in the making.

Photo Credit: Andy Hoffman

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