Sleater-Kinney have unveiled their new video for “Can I Go On,” from their most recent album The Center Won’t Hold. The clip, directed and shot by Ashley Connor, stars Lauri Guzda and Mami Kimura as two demure women having a polite, well-mannered afternoon tea…until they abruptly decide to rip their clothes off, splatter mud across each other’s bodies and just generally let loose.
Such is the power of a Sleater-Kinney song, especially one that deals with finding catharsis and hope in our current era; in a statement, Carrie Brownstein said the track “speaks to an existence that has been fractured and frayed by age or by loss, by divisive politics, by trauma or depression.”
“We’re always aware of the sense, as women who are not in our 30s anymore, that there’s this idea that sonically you’re supposed to contract after a while, and make things that are more appeasing or quieter,” singer/guitarist Brownstein added recently. “I think we’ve always fought against that. It’s also just not in our nature.”
The band previously released another video for “Love,” also from The Center Won’t Hold, in celebration of their fans. The album is produced by St. Vincent and is their follow-up to 2015’s No Cities to Love. Earlier this year, longtime Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, who contributed to The Center Won’t Hold, announced her departure from the band.
Sleater-Kinney’s two remaining members, Corin Tucker and Brownstein, kick off their tour for The Center Won’t Hold on October 9th in Spokane, WA, making stops across the U.S. during the fall before looping back over to Seattle’s Paramount Theatre for the tour’s final show on November 23rd.