Simone Istwa grew up in a musical family with parents Sam Phillips and T Bone Burnett, absorbing a wide variety of music from an early age. Their own music spans a wide range of influences as well, from glitchy electronic music to riffy rock n’ roll, and they will release new EP, Heartweb, on June 4 via Rain Phoenix’s LaunchLeft label. “Aesthetically, the world I’m painting with the record is, on one end, candy coated in a plastic sheen and on the other, dusty, dug-up artifacts of the past,” Istwa says. “Some of the guitar sounds are synths and some are actual guitars. I like to make the real ones sound fake and the fake ones sound real, so when you’re listening it’s like walking through a room of funhouse mirrors.”

The first single off the EP is “So Sure,” a swaying ballad that is both grungy and ethereal. We’ve got the premiere of the song’s video, which was directed by Nina Ljeti, who made Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto” video. “Nina and I met at my house and we talked about the movie Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger and the invention of the reverse strip tease,” Simone tells us. “It’s vulnerable and earnest, being caught without your costume on. It’s overtly sensual watching someone dress up as themselves, especially when that self is really tuff like armor.”

The video co-stars James Duval who you may know from Independence Day, Go!, and such Gregg Araki films as The Doom Generation, Nowhere, and Totally F***ed Up. “Before James was even confirmed as being cast, I was thinking a lot about Gregg Araki films like Nowhere and The Living End,” says Simone. “Araki’s films often involve themes of bisexuality but the men aren’t shown being intimate together quite as frequently. And to me, that felt like the special treat: you savor it, you tease it so that when it finally happens it’s an eruption. In the video for ‘So Sure,’ James and I are posed like greasers in a moving photograph, like we’re in front of a car we were working on together. There’s camaraderie and intimacy in our dynamic but primarily there’s unresolved tension and a deep sense of belonging. The eruption that takes place isn’t in the scenes between our two characters but in my relationship with myself, alone in my room, running with my dog; performing the biggest act of faith there is, planting the seeds today and believing there’ll be flowers tomorrow.”

Watch the video for “So Sure,” and check out Heartweb‘s tracklist and artwork, below.

TRACKLIST
1. My Fault (Introduction)
2. So Sure
3. Heartweb
4. Call Me Sometime (Interlude)
5. Kiss Everyone
6. In My Room
7. Call Me Sometime Reprise (Interlude)
8. Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional