GRAMMY-winning producer, composer, guitarist and songwriter Blake Mills shares his new single and video ‘Summer All Over’ in honour of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. The single is included on Mills’ new album ‘Mutable Set’ which is set for release on 8th May via New Deal Records/Verve. Growing up in Los Angeles, Mills has borne witness to climate change firsthand as annual rains slowed and wildfires grew in scope and intensity. Shortly after a rare storm during California’s seven-year drought, Mills wrote ‘Summer All Over,’ which NPR Music described as a “a sobering, tender ballad…teeter[ing] at the threshold of hope and despair.”
WATCH ‘SUMMER ALL OVER’ VIDEO HERE
The video, directed by Kersti Jan Werdal, uses footage of the Baffin Island Inuit Indigenous peoples, excerpted from the documentary ‘The Living Stone’ courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada. “The video explores their system of art-making as an act of sharing social-ecological knowledge; something that also ties in thematically to the lyrics in ‘Summer All Over.’” Mills notes. The resulting video, juxtaposing the images of a snowy landscape populated by its indigenous community against lyrics describing an eternal summer at the hands of humanity, is a haunting take on the climate crisis.
“Respecting the Inuit peoples in the archival material was the first priority for both Blake and myself in the edit,” says Werdal. “We aimed to respect the ritual depicted along with the subjects, while aligning the music to each moment with regards to rhythm, tone, and lyric. Roula Nassar’s corporeal and surreal sculptures expand the ideas presented, adding an imagined future to the narrative”
Mills’ first single from ‘Mutable Set,’ ‘Vanishing Twin,’ recently debuted. Watch and share the video—a timely and haunting depiction of isolation—directed by frequent Mills’ collaborator and Noh/Wave artist collective co-founder, Justin Daashuur Hopkins. View/share HERE.
‘Mutable Set’ is Mills’ fourth studio album, crafted as a soundtrack to the emotional dissonance of modern life. The record reflects the push and pull of opposing forces: harmony and eerie tension, symphonious crescendos against moments of near silence, melodic yet unresolving chord progressions. The sonically warm album holds Mills’ guitar fingerpicking, gentle piano playing and relaxed tenor at its center.
Recorded at the iconic Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, ‘Mutable Set’ features Mills joined by Aaron Embry on keys (Elliot Smith, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros), Sam Gendel on saxophone (Vampire Weekend, Moses Sumney), Rob Moose on strings (Alabama Shakes, Bon Iver) Abe Rounds (Meshell Ndegocello, Andrew Bird) on drums and Pino Palladino (The Who, D’Angelo) on bass.
Mills is widely sought after as a producer, co-writer and session musician, collaborating with such diverse artists as Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes, John Legend, Sara Bareilles, Jay-Z, Laura Marling, Phoebe Bridgers, Randy Newman and Perfume Genius, among others. He was nominated for “Producer of the Year” at the GRAMMY Awards in both 2015 and 2017, and his producing on Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Color won the “Best Alternative Music Album” GRAMMY Award in 2015.
‘MUTABLE SET’ TRACKLISTING:
1. Never Forever
2. May Later
3. Eat My Dust
4. Money is the One True God
5. Summer All Over
6. Vanishing Twin
7. My Dear One
8. Farsickness
9. Mirror Box
10. Window Facing a Window
11. Off Grid
Pre-order the new record HERE
