Ondine’s LCD Soundsystem-Inspired Ode to New York Showcases a Creepy Side of the City – AdHoc

Ondine’s LCD Soundsystem-Inspired Ode to New York Showcases a Creepy Side of the City

The video for “NEW YORK I LUV U (but ur bringing me down)” features haunting harmonies and rats eating a birthday cake.

Ondine offers a hauntingly strange picture of big-city life in the video “NEW YORK I LUV U (but ur bringing me down).” Fans of LCD soundsystem will recognize the title from that band’s unforgettable 2007 ode to New York, but Ondine’s version, with its magical harmonies, bears very little resemblance to the original. Is isn’t a cover so much as her own idiosyncratic portrait of the city—one that, in this Aria Herbst-directed video, seems to center around a creepy party where the cake is eaten by rats, a single guest shares blankly into space, and balloons float drearily next to mannequin parts. 

“I wanted this video to be an homage to my city and how beautiful, unsettling, whimsical and isolating it can be,” the singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who grew up in Manhattan, told AdHoc via email. “I knew my lifelong friend and creative partner Aria Herbst would understand my seemingly crazy concept for this video. We share similar outlooks on so many things, especially NYC, and she helped make it come to life.”

According to Online, “NEW YORK I LUV U” was the last song she wrote and recorded for her self-released 2018 Baby Teeth EP, which you can purchase here.

“This was actually the last song I wrote/recorded on the Baby Teeth EP,” she said. “It was just me and my mic in the basement of my mom’s house in Queens on my somewhat ancient Macbook Pro, praying that it wouldn’t crash every time I added a new vocal track. This EP for me was actually like losing my baby teeth. These were all songs I had held onto for years that taught me about myself and helped me discover songwriting, but I knew I had to let go of them in order to make room for the real ones someday.”

See Ondine play on Saturday, December 7th with Emily Yacina and Castle Pasture at Union Pool.

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