LA-based singer-shoegazer The Blossom (whose real name is Lily Lizotte) released a feisty new video for their song “Spike Collar.” Directed and edited by Danielle Nemet, the camera trails Lizotte through the Lower East Side, scowling in bulbous boxing gloves, baring their metallic teeth, and going ham on a bunch of innocent cardboard boxes. Or are those boxes so innocent?
“I’m finding real cruel ways to show you / Sh*t could be fine, I’ll be your whole crew,” Lizotte sing-threatens the various inanimate objects. If “California sober” had a sound, it might be The Blossom’s. Their laconic alt-pop teeters between playfulness and real pain. Lizotte purposely blurs that line.
“It’s the song I sing when I’m silently and secretly burning up inside,” they said in a statement. “It’s the hotheaded sweetness of every insecurity I have. Perpetually passing my feelings on to somebody else. The video Dani Aphrodite and I shot together portrays rage and bliss. An expression of my true opposing nature. The production is a hybrid of my sonic influences. My Dad produced it out with me, along with Simon Alex. It’s warm and comforting for me. I wrote it for myself to chill the hell out sometimes. A hot head’s kind of lullaby.”
“Spike Collar” appears on The Blossom’s recently released EP 97 Blossom, a work Lizotte said is about gender dysphoria, insecurity, and anxiety.
You can watch the “Spike Collar” video above.