Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros frontman Alex Ebert unveiled a delightfully surreal new video for his song, “Fluid,” off his upcoming solo album, I v I, out January 31st.
The song boasts a blown-out mix of hip-hop, funk and deep house, tied together by a bleating saxophone that ultimately corrals the chaos and guides the song to a close with a soaring solo.
The lyrics find Ebert exploring ideas of gender, nature and identity, and in a statement he said the song “predicts the synthesis of amorphous identity and scientific biology. Today’s detractors and bigots, who point most fervently to today’s biological facts to corroborate their disdain, are tomorrow’s luddites. The song’s futuristic antihero finds themselves feeling momentarily isolated by the changing world through the transition of a lover, until, instead of resisting the change, they embrace it — and celebrate it.”
The video for the track, which Ebert directed, finds the musician grooving against a green screen that projects an ever-changing background of biological stock footage, from splitting cells to blooming flowers to feasting bugs.
I v I marks Ebert’s second solo album and first since 2011’s Alexander. It’s also Ebert’s first album since Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ 2016 LP, Person A. Per a statement, I v I “tells a conceptual narrative exploring the many facets of human experience, through the lens of a deteriorating relationship and the eventual phoenix-like rise back into the warmth of a new love.”