Tel-Aviv based artist Noga Erez has released “NO news on TV,” a new single that she and her partner Ori Rousso wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic while producing and writing their highly anticipated second LP. The song’s music video, which is also out now, is a lesson in what happens when we seek apathy’s illusion of peace of mind.
Speaking on the song, Erez comments: “This song was written during a period where I had more time than I’ve had in a decade. I was able to sit down and work my ass off on new music without any emails disturbing the silence. No notifications, nothing. I wanted to write a song that talked about that. I felt a deep need to imagine what it would be like to live in a world with no politics, money, grit, racism or violence. As I write these words people in America and all over the world are fighting for justice for the black community. It’s tragic and saddening that in this day and age we still have to deal with racism. But this fight is so extremely important, not just for the black community in the US but for any person who suffers from oppression and mistreatment. The world couldn’t have been more opposite than the world that I’ve imagined while sitting in the silence of my apartment in a shut down city during lockdown.
I call this song ‘A children’s song for adults’ because it shows a naive, utopian reflection of reality. I just needed to have a song like that. An escape song. But what was an escape song to me a few months back became an absurd, self criticism provoking song to me. It now sounds to me more like a frantic search to close myself off and separate myself from the real world. This isn’t time for escaping, it’s a time for confronting. And I am happy that this song was able to transform into a new form of actually giving a true, honest and criticising perspective on the need for apathy and escapism. My pure daydream fantasy became an eye opener. Singing about how ‘everybody’s free’ right now is such an incredible dissonance for me. It says exactly what it needs to say: not everyone is free. Actually most of us aren’t, but some of us are literally, physically not free. And that has to change fast.”
Listen and watch “NO news on TV” below:
She continues, elaborating on the video: “In this video I was looking to do something a bit more different. Usually, my visuals always focus on presenting the beat, the cuts are always timed with the music along with the instruments. But here we were trying to find a way to contradict the up-beat song with longer shots, that serve the meaning of the song rather than the beat. I wanted to play a character that is very different from how I see myself, and the feeling of boredom playing a big part in a subconscious way throughout the video. The bear here is an intruder, a threat coming from the outside world and messing up the utopia, and also salvaging the character from the underwhelming feeling of having no worries or trouble. Once she gets friendly and intimate with the intruder she instantly realizes the outside world is too scary, too intense and she decides to get rid of it and go back to closing herself off from anything outside her beautiful, perfect boredom.”