In the band's own words, Ottawa electro-rock duo Paragon Cause were hesitant about Two To Play at the first stages of the song's creation, but now they consider it one of the best tracks on their new album Autopilot. It's a propulsive number which addresses the concept of being a people pleaser and adjusting to other people's tastes.
The song meets with a creative visual companion in retro video game style conceived by the duo themselves alongside animator Luigi Salas.
Two To Play was recorded with Sune Rose Wagner from the veteran alternative band The Raveonettes with whom Paragon Cause collaborate often.
Jay Bonaparte and Michelle Opthof explain the idea behind the song and the creation of the video: "We I wanted a dreamy shoegaze, powerful kind of song, and that’s what we ended up with. The emotion of the music was critical, we wanted the intro to be very simple and classic sounding, purposely a bit raw. Then, as the character in the song comes to an epiphany, the music widens and opens up. We are proud we were able to capture that. Ironically, the song is about doing things for yourself and not allowing others to influence your decisions. But at the same time, it felt like a game a person can play with themselves. So we asked ourselves, who plays the game? That brought us to the idea of creating a video game, but in a modern retro futuristic 8bit Halifax, Canada. Again the idea of time came into play. We connected with an animator, Luigi Salas and pitched our story. A women lost in a crowd of brainwashed followers. The demon preacher is actually, the ‘ghost’ on the cover over the Autopilot album. The women attempts to escape the demon preacher who never catches her but, regardless, she can not escape her demons and was part of the game. We also wanted to write a bit of a love letter to the late 90’s/early 2000’s Halifax Music Scene. We worked hard to put a lot of Easter Eggs in there. Halifax inspired us to be musicians and the nod is a bit of a thank you."
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Paragon Cause
Video directed by Luigi Salas and Jay Bonaparte.
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