Blake Mills – "Summer All Over"

Blake Mills, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who’s worked with people like Fiona Apple, Perfume Genius, John Legend, and Phoebe Bridgers, announced his new album Mutable Set and shared its lovely lead single “Vanishing Twin” last month. And today, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, he’s back with a music video for new song “Summer All Over,” a tender, softly glowing piano ballad that he wrote shortly after a storm during California’s seven-year drought.

While “Summer All Over” might sound nice, Mills imagines it as the terrifying consequence of climate change and our mistreatment of the planet. And the music video, directed by Kersti Jan Werdal, pairs those themes with footage of the Baffin Island Inuit Indigenous peoples excerpted from the documentary The Living Stone courtesy of the National Film Board Of Canada. “The video explores their system of art making as an act of sharing social-ecological knowledge; something that also ties in thematically to the lyrics in ‘Summer All Over,’” Mills explains.

“Respecting the Inuit peoples in the archival material was the first priority for both Blake and myself in the edit,” adds Werdal. “We aimed to respect the ritual depicted along with the subjects, while aligning the music to each moment with regards to rhythm, tone, and lyric. Roula Nassar’s corporeal and surreal sculptures expand the ideas presented, adding an imagined future to the narrative.” Watch and listen to “Summer All Over” below.

Mutable Set is out 5/8 on New Deal/Verve. Pre-order it here.