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Despite having already released their final album, The Slants keep finding creative ways of remaining eminent. Today marks the premiere of the music video for their latest single, “Crystal Lake.” The song features Othertonesmusician Iman Nadeem’s punk/emo side project. The video clip injects a whole life into the song, featuring a wondrous and elaborate dance routine from XP-Team, an Indonesian dance group specializing in K-pop. The video clip is consistent with the band’s intention of promoting and empowering up-and-coming artists from the Asian community.

We previously premiered The Slants’ music video for “Ideas of You,” which was released this past May. As you may recall, the band has experienced many landmark moments no one could ever imagine. Most prominent was taking on the U.S. Supreme Court while earning the respect of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That remarkable story was then made into a rock opera titled Slanted: An American Rock Opera.

Commenting on the song, The Slants’ Simon Tam states:

“For the longest time, I only knew one version of ‘Crystal Lake,’ a demo with our guitarist Joe X. Jiang playing and singing all of the parts. But then, the magic of collaboration started to bring this to life. We asked Iman Nadeem (also known as Othertones), an artist who we sometimes worked with through The Slants Foundation and she really took it to a whole different level with emotional depth and range. Of course, Bao Vo brought in additional layers of synth, production, and background vocals that really helped make this song bigger and more powerful than we imagined. The final result captures a bit of a Kate Bush vibe and I love it.

“When it came time to put some visuals to it, I immediately thought of XP-Team, this dance group from Indonesia who choreographed something for our ‘What Will People Say’ video. I just gave some basic direction but they really brought it to life with some very cool surprises!”

Jiang adds:

“‘Crystal Lake’ was at one point called ‘Coolplay’ because my original noodlings sounded a bit like Coldplay. Lyrically it was a homage to Friday the 13th, but from the perspective of people mourning the death of an offscreen character. The song was written fairly quickly back in 2016 but it didn’t fit the vibes of The Slants at the time. It came back to life seven years later, with Iman’s powerful vocals and Bao’s awesome production. It turned out better than I could have imagined and is probably my favourite track on the album.”

The Band Plays On is a significant release for so many reasons. Each song features a guest performer, and most feature a guest vocalist. All of the guests are up-and-coming artists from the Asian American community. This album was their way of not only officially closing the book on The Slants but also using it as an opportunity to pass the torch, so to speak. They have connected with hundreds of Asian American artists over the years, many via their nonprofit, The Slants Foundation. Connecting with these artists inspired the members of the band to rethink what was possible with their art. The project all came together so naturally, and The Band Plays On has become both an opus for The Slants and a turning of the page for a whole new generation of talented young Asian American talent.

The Slants ‘The Band Plays On’ album artwork

The Slants ‘The Band Plays On’ album artwork

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