Late last week, indie innovators Portugal. The Man returned after a lengthy break from music with the groovy new single “Feel It Still.” On Monday (March 6), they shared the intriguing and timely music video for the track.
As the press release states, viewers are “encouraged to find hidden Easter eggs designed to help #theresistance movement.” Such “eggs,” so to speak, include a direct dial to the White House, a video explainer of the legal rights of protesters, donation sites for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU and many other hidden gems.
Amid it all, there is lead singer John Gourley, who writhes in a Thom Yorke-esque manner to the funky brass backbeat while wearing crisp white overalls surrounded by cars ready for demolition. “I’m a rebel just for kicks now,” he sings — the video adding context to what exactly he is rebelling against.
“This project came at an interesting time where music and culture and politics are coming together in a way we haven’t seen in decades,” Jason Kreher, creative director at Wieden+Kennedyfor (the global creative agency PTM partnered with for the video), says in the release. “We loved the idea of presenting the apathetic, decadent rebel just for kicks from the song against a hidden message of resistance… you know, like a ‘this is for the people out there who are still feeling something; here is a real, practical laundry list of ways you can get out there and fight injustice.’”
“Feel It Still” is the first taste of new music to come from the Alaskan outfit since 2013’s Evil Friends. Since that album’s release, the group got to work on an album they were calling Gloomin + Doomin, though it failed to feel complete, and after three years’ time, it was thrown out. They have since pieced together a new album, Woodstock, that will likely reflect the current cultural climate; if this new single is any indication of what the rest of the songs will sound like, they’re sure to be equally charged and embedded with deep meaning that speaks to now.
“We worked with so many rad people on this album, but ended up with just the four of us in a basement at 4 a.m. trying to say something that mattered,” Gourley says. “Trying to write music that would help people feel they’re not alone, even if they’re angry or feeling lost. This video is our way of saying that we’re all in this together.”
The upcoming album’s title stems from the moment Gourley found his father’s ticket stub from the original Woodstock music festival in 1969. He then realized that nearly half a century later, music still had to serve the same mission it did then: to comment on societal and political unease. They then returned to the studio with a renewed sense of clarity and direction, and from there the album came naturally. No release date has been revealed yet.
Watch the video below for “Feel It Still” below.