VIDEO PREMIERE | Harry the Nightgown, "Babbling"
Harry the Nightgown from left — Spencer Hartling & Sami Perez; photographed by Courtney Melahn.
Despite the ups and downs of the west coast pertaining to the deluge of obnoxious trend influencers and the rampant shortage of affordable housing — the creative spirit remains strong and steadfast in the face of all adversity. Through amazing times, the okay times, the good, the bad, the meh and outright ugly; the dwellers of the Pacific sands and seas embrace the beams of light and winds of change that mirror the convection cycles of misty fog, breezes and radiant bursts of sun. It is that organic source of inspiration that chases off the humdrum gravitational pull of ennui as the bright kernels of imagination and innovation meet together like talented hands and hearts in congress.
Enter the Los Angeles-based duo Harry the Nightgown; comprised of Sami Perez (of The She’s and Cherry Glazerr) and Spencer Hartling. Creative partners/former romantic partners and engineers at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studios and also co-founded with Vanderslice the new LA studio Grandmas Couch; Perez/Hartling together create impressionist art inspired from experience and expounded into vignettes that speak to the most curious corners of the psyche, soul, mind and body. Harry the Nightgown is emblematic of post-post-modern pop of self-actualization, clever catharses and bountiful fantasias of magical realism, like their moniker’s inspiration taken from a tree that sat outside of Perez’s window of her childhood home in San Francisco’s Alamo Square:
Sami: Harry was a tree friend of mine that sat outside my window as a kid. I grew up in SF across from Alamo Square park (Full House loc) and this tree was uniquely covered in ivy so I named it Harry the Nightgown because of its beautifully vine-y dress. Since childhood the neighborhood got cleaned up and poor Harry was shaved. Anyway, Spencer liked the name so we took it as our own. — Sami Perez via When the Horn Blows
Having recently graced the scene with ear worms like “Ping Pong” and “Pill Poppin’ Therapist” — the west coast wunderkinds Harry the Nightgown astound with their most mesmerizing single to date with the world debut of “Babbling”. Complete with a visual filmed by Russ, assisted by Walker Doven and starring Madison Crossman & Lucy Ashton; the fabrics of our mutually recognized dimension are torn to reveal a universe of abandon and an ineffable echelon of love and affection that coasts somewhere between the sensual and the cosmic. The rich sounds orchestrated by Sami and Spencer are elevated in ways that shatter descriptors and the economies of adjectives in favor of sounds and vision that abide by the wisdom, sentiments and sciences that are generally experienced in the logic and encounters found in the deepest depths of dreams.
Prepare to be whisked away to another whole green world. A glamorous realm ripped from the yellowed pages of vintage Harlequin novels crossed with a brooding metaphysical Emily Brontë-styled sorts of sensationalism. Set on a lush hillside amid a back drop of blue skies and majestic clouds; a timeless treasured freedom of the spirit and the heart is depicted like a DIY fashion shoot b-reel captured like an art house home-shot VHS tape. Lucy and Madison are seen indulging in a mystical, sapphic romance that responds gently and serenely to the song's cues of drama, tranquility and otherworldly amory. "Babbling" is a glamorous ballad that recalls the sacred and privy nature of intimate interludes shared between starry-eyed spirits and those expansive universes that are only fully witnessed and inhabited together by those aforementioned parties alone. Harry the Nightgown shines a light on those miraculous celestial places that only the dreamers, the singers, the songwriters and beholders can create.
Harry the Nightgown’s Sami Perez shared the following thoughtful introduction to the new single:
“Babbling” came from a particular day with a particular person, which I may, unfortunately, have to keep private. But it’s also about an addiction to fantasy, experiencing shame in secretive love, the excitement of new love, the impossibility of long love, and the sand that stays in your scalp to remind you of a beach you visited many days ago. I wrote this song amidst a phase of escapism, which I guess was not that long ago.
Creative partners in pop — Harry the Nightgown’s Spencer Hartling & Sami Perez; press photo courtesy of the artists.
But, looking back, the phase was a product of being on tour and getting addicted to this freedom you find when you lack grounding. You are free to live by drifting. It’s really a day-dreamer’s fantasy — you can pretend like this dreamy way of life works as a stable form of reality for a brief period of time. I think deep down you know that it’s really not stable at all, but it’s easy to ignore that intuition. The narration is cautious, grateful, and confused. I’d say that generally sums up how I feel most of the time.
Reflections from Harry the Nightgown; photographed by Courtney Melahn.
The song itself represents the journey of living out this fantasy well. I love how it goes from sad to aggressive to joyous — an evolution I often find myself in the process of. I like to celebrate the joyous era of this evolution. It reminds me that there is an urgency for dreamers in our current fight for social justice and political reform.
Harry the Nightgown’s debut self-titled album arrives August 7 via Topshelf Records and Wiggle World Records.