Zooey Celeste Presents New Single “Big Trouble” (with Tei Shi)
Zooey Celeste presents the new single/video, “Big Trouble” (with Tei Shi), from his debut album, Restless Thoughts, out this Friday, November 10th on ATO. On the Nick Hakim-produced “Big Trouble,” Colombian-Canadian singer/songwriter Tei Shi (aka Valerie Teicher Barbosa) joins Zooey for a sublime piece of surrealist dance-pop that channels a deep longing for psychic liberation. As Zooey reveals, the song emerged through pure unbridled spontaneity. “Nick and Jake [Portrait, of Unknown Mortal Orchestra] were working on a track for another artist and I asked if I could sing on it, and we used what came out in my first take — it was just a crazy burst of raw confidence,” he recalls. “Later on Val came in and heard it, and we ended up singing it together and collaborating on developing the rest of the track. She literally plucked out that what I was singing sounded like the words ‘big trouble,’ and her hook became the thing that tied the whole song together.”
Tei Shi adds: “I personally love this song so much. It came out of a long and wild night in the studio with Zooey and Nick and Danny [Hakim] – I think we started about 7 other songs that night. They played me the initial demo for this one, which they’d already started, and Zooey sang his parts over it. As soon as I heard the idea it was clear to me that it was a really special song. I came up with my little hook and we laid it all down as we wrote it. A few months later I got the finished version and I love how true it stayed to what we did that night! It’s a classic back and forth between two people who don’t really know if what they want is each other, but it’s playful and fun in a way that I haven’t heard indie songs be in a while.”
The accompanying “Big Trouble” video by Camryn Eakes (director/choreographer/writer) and Tylre Wilcox (DP/cinematographer) is Zooey’s debut music video and comes with a sequel for the album’s title track, “Restless Thoughts,” next week. Eakes says, “I wanted to make a video that reflected the desperation and harmony I hear in ‘Big Trouble.’ I focused on an idea that mimics a cold and numb cat-and-mouse chase, but also illustrates the lingering magnetism and care between the two characters. Overall, exploring the notion of living in a cycle of knowing that your relationship isn’t going to last, while still performing in it and reflecting on the joyful moments. This is their one last hurrah.”
“Zooey wanted to move and dance in both the ‘Restless Thoughts’ and ‘Big Trouble’ videos, so first we created a movement language for ‘Restless’ softly based on yoga and surfing, two of his daily practices,” continues Eakes. “We then reworked and adapted that choreography to fit ‘Big Trouble’ and played with other ideas and character development in the studio.” “We designed ‘Restless Thoughts’ to display Zooey’s internal struggle and mental spiral and ‘Big Trouble’ to illustrate what led him to his breaking point,” adds Wilcox, who has also worked with Willow Smith and Vans. “‘Restless Thoughts’ had to live in a dark, gritty world. ‘Big Trouble’ on the other hand I wanted to feel a bit more optimistic so we decided to go a bit brighter, warmer and richer in color.”
Zooey will also perform his first LA headline and record release show in support of Restless Thoughts at Genghis Cohen this Friday, November 10th. He’ll follow that up with his debut NYC headline and record release show at Baby’s All Right on Saturday, November 18th.
Watch/Stream Zooey Celeste’s “Big Trouble” (with Tei Shi)
Restless Thoughts is the real-life manifestation of its creator’s alter ego — an astral shaman responsible for leading the newly departed into the great beyond. After dreaming up the character of Zooey Celeste in a feverishly written novel he refers to as “somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and the Bhagavad Gita,” Zooey began working to create this ideal soundtrack for nocturnal driving, an immediate conduit for lasting transcendence. Alongside Nick Hakim, Zooey enlisted a wide array of guest musicians to flesh out the sound of Restless Thoughts, including Jake Portrait, Tei Shi, and drummer Abe Rounds (Andrew Bird, Blake Mills, Devandra Banhart), with mastering by Heba Kadry (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, Julianna Barwick). With the release of Restless Thoughts, Zooey hopes to instill the audience with an expanded sense of possibility.
“Zooey Celeste specializes in a quietly driving psychedelic pop that explodes but never grazes the red. His voice has traces of Spencer Krug’s warbling, mad prophet quality, delivering loving exhortations over compositions that sound fresh off a reel-to-reel plugged directly into his heart.” — The FADER
“dark and hazy, dreamy yet lucid, relentless but wavy – it’s pretty captivating.” — DIY Magazine
“There’s just something really special about Zooey Celeste.” — BBC Radio 6
“‘Cosmic Being’ is a lo-fi track filled with aching serenity.” — Paste
ARTIST
ALBUM
