![]() When I recently spoke with Mering in Brooklyn, we discussed the experience of working with Stanley, the significance of cinema in Titanic Rising, and the process of shooting underwater photographs. To ensure the set wouldn’t disintegrate, they relied on sandbags and a two-hour time limit for filming. To create the visual aesthetic for Titanic Rising, Mering enlisted Brett Stanley to help bring the underwater cover art to life in a Long Beach, California pool. Unlike Front Row Seat To Earth, though, what Mering muses about on Titanic Rising isn’t solely terrifying, it’s also real. In an interview with Pitchfork, Mering also describes how she created “this feeling of smallness most people feel when we think about the scope of the issues we’re facing” in her music that was timeless, but also specific to 2019. But the ethereal music speaks to the way we love: how romantic relationships have changed in a world of unlimited options and shifting priorities. The water in Mering’s world is meant to symbolize a subconscious realm capturing the sentiment people process from film consumption. The album, which is described in a press release as “the Kinks meet WWII or Bob Seger meets Enya” captures the all-encompassing experience Mering is trying to convey in her most conceptual album to date. Similarly, the video for her dizzying single “ Movies” finds the musician once again floating underwater, this time as a part of a film captivating an audience. Titanic Rising, her new album out today, was officially introduced with a retro slasher video for the jovial lead single “ Everyday.” But more striking than the video itself is Mering’s album art the cover features Mering submerged in water, her hair floating upwards creating a prism of light while she sinks to the floor of a childhood bedroom covered in posters. Now, three years after the release of Front Row Seat To Earth, Mering has reinvented herself once again. Accompanying Mering’s aesthetic, the music of Front Row Seat To Earth is a dystopian sci-fi love story that is as startling as it is beautiful. By the time she released her third record, 2016’s Front Row Seat To Earth, she seemed to reinvent herself once again, this time as a ’70s Laurel Canyon rock singer in a satin suit lounging on the shores of the Salton Sea. For her self-released debut album The Outside Room, released in 2011, Mering decided to shake things up, changing her project name to “Weyes Blood And The Dark Juices.” With her 2014 record The Innocents, she went simply by “Weyes Blood.” Over the course of her career, Mering has been a shape-shifting character. The singer-songwriter has been self-releasing albums since she was 15, initially using the moniker “Wise Blood” from the Flannery O’Connor novel for her songs. As Weyes Blood, Natalie Mering has spent her career making more than just records: She’s created fully immersive experiences. ![]()
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