Exclusive video premiere of ‘Threads’ + stream of the B-Side ‘What Happened Today’ by NYC post-punk outfit Fair Visions.

Fair Visions is a Brooklyn-based post-punk outfit with a penchant for New Wave. Ryan Work (the man behind the name) crafts beautiful synth laden new wave tracks, taking inspiration from literary greats in his lyrics and David Bowie in his sound. Fair Visions represents part of the new New York New Wave scene, alongside friends and inspirations machinegum and Nation of Language.

About the video, Fair Visions states, “We spent a day traveling down Long Island to the beach at Montauk in November to shoot this. ‘Threads’ in particular really lays into the dread of an unforgiving city – the gradual shock of realization and calmness as tensions subside is the central feeling of what was captured for me.”

Whether on the pulsing greyscale hues of ‘A Way Out’ (2020), the anthemic melancholy of ‘Modern Kids’ (2021), or the “family issues and apocalypse feelings” of their forthcoming debut LP (slated for 2022), Fair Visions have always been about big themes manifested in small details. The synth post-punk project led by songwriter Ryan Work dexterously probes the abysses of doubt and loneliness, drawing on rhythms from the shadows of New York City.

Fair Visions began soon after Work’s arrival in New York from his Tennessee hometown in 2017. Borne, like so many before him, into the city’s seething mass of crises and contradictions, he struggled with uncertainty about his path even as he began composing the material that would become Fair Visions’ first two EPs. After opening for fellow post-punk revivalists Nation of Language in 2018, Work alighted upon Abe Seiferth (LCD Soundsystem, Guerilla Toss, Car Seat Headrest), who has become integral to Fair Visions’ studio output. The project has since featured a rotating membership of collaborators surrounding Work and Seiferth.

Ironically released mere weeks before the onset of the pandemic, debut EP ‘A Way Out’ parried self-destruction with giddy drum machines and rippling synthesizers. Its follow-up, ‘Modern Kids’, deepened the gloom, harnessing a growing array of textures and effects to produce some of Fair Visions’ most bombastic work. While the twin EPs share more commonalities than disparity, ‘Modern Kids’ reveals itself as the gloomy ‘tails’ to A Way Out exhilarant ‘heads’: a dark night of the nation’s soul set to monumental sonic tides.

Drawing inspiration from authors like Hesse, Borges, Weil, and Nietszche, as well as the sonic imprints of David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and Carla dal Forno, Fair Visions bring a pointillistic precision to the tradition of New York New Wave.

Headline photo: Rita Iovine

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