Back in my day if you wanted to be one of the first to lay eyes on a new music video, you basically had to stay locked onto TRL. And if you wanted your music video to get played, you probably had to have an industry contact in the early internet era. So no disrespect to Carson Daly, but our ability to showcase Austin visuals freely is all thanks to you.

And since our Fall Membership Drive steers near to Halloween, skies are grey and pallor is back in seasonal fashion. Which brings up to Pale Dian. Spearheaded by visceral vocalist-synthesist Ruth Ellen Smith, Pale Dian purveys a Post-Punk-meets-Shoegaze style that’s been deemed “Nightmare Pop”. Since their 2016 debut Narrow Birth, these bleak dissociations have trickled across time and genre, in way where a Roy Orbison collaboration with Cocteau Twins wouldn’t be unheard of.

Like a double-exposed dream dipped in desire and doused in delight, Pale Dian dropped their sophomore follow-up Feral Birth yesterday. The band celebrated with a record release last night at Hotel Vegas two weeks before their upcoming appearance at the Galveston Art Festival. But you won’t need to make a beach trip to enjoy Pale Dian’s off-kilter optics; today they’ve unleashed a one-of-a-kind counterpart to Feral Birth. Animated by longtime Richard Linklater collaborator Wiley Wiggins (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, etc.) “Misanthrope” will momentarily transport you out of the beginning-of-week mindset so you can turn on, tune in, and drop out to watch reality melt.