A defining synth-alt band, the electronic keys of Passion Pit really pop, their hit song Take A Walk being a prime example, and although the video features little of the band, it instead focuses on where their music will take you.
In the video Take A Walk the leading role is given to a bouncy-ball that’s seemingly born with a life of its own. For the super-charged rubber takes more than a walk, but a flying leap across America. Starting with a picture-perfect suburbia that’s made all the more complete with a cute little puppy, to travelling across America’s natural beauty and showing more than a touch of the “American Dream”. But then the ball starts to enter the tougher aspects of life in the US, the lyrics as such matching it; “But then my partner called to say the pension funds were gone”. It’s understandable therefore that many have taken the song and its video to be political, especially as it came just a few years after America’s 2008 financial crisis. However, the song is actually charting frontman Michael Angelako’s family history, in particular how they came to the US seeking a better life, but then struggled within it .
The family tree beginning from an immigrant new to America, who’s selling carnations outside Penn Station while hoping to have his family near. To then having them live in different parts of the country; “But off the boat they stayed a while/Then scattered across the coast/Once a year I’ll see them for a week or so at most”. And finally later generations that achieved “economic” success, only to lose it. Each verse being deeply personal to Angelako as he talks about the family line that made him.
It’s therefore only fair that Angelako is the one to start the music video for Take A Walk – standing up from the street floor from where he was sleeping? Or dealing with a hangover??? (who knows) but from this he throws a blue rubber ball and the camera’s POV becomes the object as it takes off across the land – and thereby showing various scenes of America. There are neighbours eating cereal on their driveway. A broken down car. A couple in the park. Baseball practice. A countryside in bloom. A farmer working on his farm. To city-scrapes piercing the sky; “And tomorrow some new building will scrape the sky”, where cars honk, and paper floats down the street, to the discarded items of a house being left on a roof where Angelako now sings from, before the ball again continues its journey. The video showing a comparison of suburbia, nature, to sprawling developments – even the sky shows a change from birds to planes.
The synth-beats of Take A Walk pair perfectly with the video’s motion of the ball, and though I would have liked a more bouncing effect, I don’t think my stomach could’ve handled it. The imitation of filming from the ball’s POV being produced using helicam technology; giving a smoothness to flight and the quick illusion of hitting the ground, with graphics used for those higher-up shots above the clouds. Directed by David Wilson, Take A Walk is a memorable video that leaves you to interpret what you want about America, its beauty always having that little extra that demands a re-look, or you might just have a vase fall on you from above.
Formed in 2007, Passion Pit has seen a variety of changes in its line-up, thankfully though Angelako has always remained the leading force, in fact it was his valentine’s gift of an EP called Chunk of Change (2008) that first led to the band being discovered. A constant lyricist, Angelako has used music as a way of delving deeper into who he is, while using his position within music to help advocate for better mental health support; often being openly honest about his own struggles and the pressures of the industry, in particular that of promoting and touring.
When listening to the tracks of Passion Pit their music seems to have one obvious objective – to inject you with an overflowing sense of energy. Their heavy use of synths having the outcome of a kid on a sugar high who’s been placed in a candy store; the sweet tooth being happily indulged. Some of the tracks could do with a bit more salt, still, everyone loves a bit of candy now and then.
Other songs by Passion Pit we love:
- Carried Away (2012 – Gossamer)
- Little Secrets (2009 – Manners)
- Moth’s Wings (2009 – Manners)
- Sleepyhead (2009 – Manners)
Other artists you might like:
- Grouplove
- Matt and Kim
- Miike Snow
- The Naked and Famous
- Two Door Cinema Club
