Pet Deaths team up with Ruth Bradley for latest single ‘Youtube Comments’
The track begins like the slow, steady hush of autumn as Pet Deaths present another slice of layered loveliness in the form of ‘Youtube Comments’.
For their latest single, the London-based duo found an inspired collaborator in the form of the BAFTA-nominated Ruth Bradley. The Slow Horses actor simply approached the band, enthused after a show. That feels like a very apt way for things to have fallen into place, given that the song delves into the nature of communion.
“There was a time not so long ago when love letters were left on forums, not hidden behind paywalls or filtered through algorithms,” frontman Liam Karima explains. “Music felt like a shared gift, and kindness wasn’t a currency. We still believe in that kind of connection. We hope others do too, that a song can move not just ears, but hearts. That it might ripple something outward.”
It’s a thought that pokes deep. A while back, I even spoke with a professor about whether our music tastes or more or less our own in the age of algorithms. Do algorithms provide the most personal recommendation service imaginable, or do they cloister us to our first click? Well, in typical profressorly fashion, Prof Nick Seaver subverted that question entirely and claimed our tastes are never really our own anyway.
But they are informed by the people and places around us. What happens when those people disappear and the places become non-places, realms of functionality and bots. That’s quite a thought to cram into a lilting four-minute folk song, but Pet Deaths have never been renowned for minimalism. This latest effort is another textured gem that you could study like a prism.
“‘YouTube Comments’ was written during a jagged season of insomnia, fear, and online conversations that spiralled,” Karima continues. “We found ourselves in digital exchanges with everyone from wood whittlers to Aphex Twin obsessives… and, as it turned out, a cult.”
On the startling latter point, they continue, “It was surreal, dark, sometimes hilarious and deeply unsettling. The dialogue you hear in the track is real, lifted word-for-word from those strange, threatening, and often absurd interactions on YouTube comments.”
The postlapsarian darkness of the current internet age is skewered softly by the song and its subtle absurdism (that turns out to not be absurdism at all, but neo-realism), as Karima explains, “At one point, a man claiming to be a prophet spoke casually about arson and promised to behead a foal ‘in the name of art.’ It sounds like fiction, but it’s just the internet. That blurry mirror of trauma, irony, and performance.”
He aptly concludes, “‘YouTube Comments’ is a strange, emotional time capsule – part diary, part warning, part anthem for anyone who’s felt lost in the noise but still reached out.” The music itself mirrors that sentiment: in the hazy blur of its soft flow, the arresting specifics spike out and startle you. It’s as luscious as it is alarming.
Produced by Ian Davenport, the single is the latest cut from their forthcoming new album, The Window (Part One). Pet Deaths are also set for a special headline show at the 100 Club on October 2nd.
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