Rain Phoenix has shared the video for her new song “Time Is the Killer,” a collaboration with Michael Stipe. The track appears on a double A-side single featuring a pair of unreleased songs by Aleka’s Attic, her late brother River Phoenix’s band.
Pitchfork debuted the video for the song, which finds Phoenix and Stipe recording the slow-burning track in the studio and slow dancing in the street.
“For me, [‘Time is the Killer’ is] about impermanence, our futile attempts at avoiding it and the bittersweet outcome of everything changing all the time,” Rain Phoenix previously told Rolling Stone. “I like to hear what other people think about what it means.”
She added of collaborating with her longtime friend and former R.E.M. singer, “It was so close to home for me, it was difficult, but I got up the courage and asked. Stipe asked to hear the song. He loved it. He said yes. I am still in shock. His voice is magic.”
“Time Is the Killer” marks Rain Phoenix’s first release as a solo artist and a now-rare musical appearance by Stipe. The single, which also boasts Aleka’s Attic’s “Where I’d Gone” and “Scales & Fishnails,” is out February 14th via Kro Records/LaunchLeft.