VIDEO PREMIERE

.Michael. - how could you do that

By Jordan Feinstein

.Michael. traffics in the beautiful threads connecting the overwhelming and the mundane. Michael Buishas and Michael Sachs (now you get their name) write music that can feel delicate to the point of fragility, both in its wandering, sparse instrumentation, and its willingness to spend a whole (usually short) song within a single thought. Through their quest for simplicity, their music finds a way to evoke an emotional truth that can be powerful to let yourself fall into. It’s a focus that leads to a sort of purity, an exploration of feelings edited down to their base components.

Their music video for “how could you do that,” off their upcoming album Crumb Devotion (just look at that album title), perfectly fits this feeling in .Michael.’s music. In “how could you do that,” Michael sings about a girl that he’s broken up with, and thinks about her already dating again. Directed by Sam Taffel and beautifully choreographed / performed by the ever-talented Melodie Stancato, the video shows the girl he’s thinking about performing normal household tasks, but with an elegant dance to her movements. It conveys how he’s thinking about her wonderfully, applying an unrealistic import and beauty to her perfectly run-of-the-mill actions, the product of him building her up in his mind through constant thought. It’s difficult to describe, but conveyed effortlessly through the music, lyrics, and video. The ability to convey this very specific emotional space perfectly, while I sit here struggling to make it work in mere sentences, is exactly what makes .Michael. so special.

You can catch .Michael. on tour with Big Thief throughout October, and pre-order their album “Crumb Collection” here.