Feb 22, 2023
By Mark Redfern
LA goth-rock band Death Valley Girls are releasing a new album, Islands in the Sky, this Friday via Suicide Squeeze. Now they have shared its latest single, title track “Islands in the Sky,” via a spooky music video. Dylan Greenberg directed the video, which features the band in a cemetery surrounded by ghosts. Watch it below.
The band’s main singer Bonnie Bloomgarden had this to say about the song in a press release: “We wrote ‘Islands in the Sky’ for our future selves, hoping that if we can share the secrets we have learned from this life, and all our past lives, we wouldn’t have to suffer or feel alone again in our next carnations! You are not becoming the best version of yourself, you are and always have been, the highest and best you, eternally! You may have forgotten from societal programming, how you were raised, trauma, or ancestral circumstances, but as you grow, try to remember that the highest version of you, is cheering you on! Sending you messages to pay attention to your intuition and trust yourself. To love yourself. And to never forget…
“You’re in charge of
Your perception of your life
You can choose what you keep
And what you leave behind
No one gets to choose for you
What you need to keep.
All that lasts is all that matters
And what you want to think”
Greenberg had this to say about directing the video: “When Bonnie approached me about making a video for this song, I was excited because the song connected with me immediately. The music and lyrics have a beautiful, melancholy optimism that called to mind a certain timelessness found in work by the Sherman Brothers and the late Burt Bacharach, with a rock/punk edge. The video was made remotely, so I wanted to put together an immersive digital environment for the band and the ghosts to be able to move in. My partner and I dressed in all black and wore ghost costumes they made and double exposed them into the video. It’s an effect that’s been done since the dawn of special effects by pioneers like George Melies, but with the benefit of digital effects allowing me to control them with a virtual camera. I wanted to make sure the movement, tone and visuals all matched the ‘spirit’ (no pun intended) of the song and had a flowing, optimistic energy that I felt emanated from the music.”
In September, Death Valley Girls previously shared the album track “It’s All Really Kind of Amazing.” When the album was announced in November they shared its second single, “What Are the Odds,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Then in January they shared the next single, “Sunday,” via a music video. Then they shared “Magic Powers,” also via a music video.
In a previous press release, Bloomgarden elaborated on the album, which was initially conceived while she was bed-ridden with a mysterious illness from November 2020 to March 2021: “When I was sick, I started to wonder if it would be possible to write a record with messages of love to my future self. This was really the first time that I consciously thought about my own suffering and what future me might need to hear to heal. I struggled so much in my life with mental health, abuse, PTSD, and feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. And I don’t want anyone—including my future self—to suffer ever again. I realized that if we are all part of one cosmic consciousness, as we [Death Valley Girls] believe, then Islands in the Sky could serve not only as a message of love and acceptance to myself, but also from every self to every self, because we are all one!”
The band’s last album, Under the Spell of Joy, came out in 2020 via Suicide Squeeze. It featured songs “The Universe” (one of our Songs of the Week) and “Hold My Hand” (another one of our Songs of the Week).