Since their formation in 2020, the Washington, D.C. band Requiem has maintained a busy schedule. Following several EPs, mini albums, and their bold debut full-length album POPulist Agendas, they make a return with the audio-visual single Breathe, which takes video artist and vocalist Monica Stroik to the forefront. Requiem's Tristan Welch (electric guitar), Doug Kallymeyer (bass, electronics, production), and Andrew Toy (drums, electronics) collaborated to create a lengthy, melancholic, ambient post rock composition.
According to Monica Stroik, the new track was created in response to Russia's military attacks on Ukraine in 2022. She says the video and lyrics came from a deep response to contemplating about "innocent victims that lay dying with their last breath," alluding to the title of the song.
The group believes that the video and single channel their driven live performances, which resemble art installations rather than typical rock bands.
On the video, Stroik says: “The idea behind the video echoes these words for me visually – flowers opening up to life, representing the beauty and hope of living; then the ethereal swelling, representing a mixture of breath and blood, necessities of the living; and the movement of figures reaching, grasping, aching, wanting, breathing…”
-
Requiem
Mutineer Records
-
