Long Lash: New Song and Video for Bitter Defeat

A R T I C L E
Long Lash: New Song and Video for Bitter Defeat
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Local indie-rock/jangle-pop band Bitter Defeat released their second single, ‘Long Lash’, complete with video late last week. The song itself was based around a freak eyelash that lead singer Rob Shirlow woke up with one day. “It had grown to about 10 cm long overnight, which sounds like absolute bullshit, but it is totally true. I started to lament the weird, mildly annoying stuff that starts to happen when you get older, but which doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things, like grey hair, cracking knees, needing naps and so on. Hardly rock song material really, but you know…”. 

The video, produced by local Kat Waswo of WATZKAT Productions — who has also recently made videos for Auckland band REPAIRS — was recorded in various Hamilton locations in late September. “She did an amazing job”, said Shirlow. “We gave Kat complete control and just rocked up on the day not quite knowing what to expect. She planned the whole thing and took us to some great locations, like art installation ‘The Mesoverse’, ‘The Shrooms’ in Garden Place, ‘Never Project Space’ in Frankton, and a few others”. The video also features snippets of other Hamilton locations.

‘Long Lash’ is one of several tracks recorded over a two-day session in early August at Hamilton’s The Porch Studio by long-time ‘The Datsuns’ sound engineer and collaborator Scott Newth. It is the second recording to be released, following ‘Light that Shines’ last month. They plan to release two more singles online in the coming months, followed by their first physical release, an EP via Kirikiriroa-based Gravel Streak Records.

Bitter Defeat started as a lo-fi solo recording project by Shirlow in 2016, but expanded into a live (and now recording) band in 2018, with the addition of Ben Manning (guitar, vocals), Kathryn Thompson (drums), Ian Duggan (casiotone) and Julian White (bass, backing vocals). They have played a string of shows with the likes of The Bats, Hamish Kilgour, and John Davis of Folk Implosion.

‘Long Lash’ is available to buy on Bandcamp at https://bitterdefeat.bandcamp.com/ and stream in all the usual places including Spotify.