Late Sea Share New Anti-War Protest Single 'Cover Up'

Brooklyn-based indie/art rock band Late Sea share the poignant video for anti-war, protest track "Cover Up," out everywhere now.

Late Sea is lead by composer and multi-instrumentalist Izzy Gliksberg (vocals, guitar, keyboard), along with Graham Dobby (drums), Clinton Greenlee (bass) and Kalen Lister (keyboard, vocals).

In 2017, the group released their debut audio-visual EP, The Writers Trilogy with Emmy-nominated director, Andrew Alistratov and producer Hazuki Aikawa. The second track on the project, "The Great White" was praised by Impose Magazine who wrote, "Gliksberg's vocals are haunting...the composition is stunning and in your face." The group has also released a cover of the 1964 Simon and Garfunkel staple, "The Sounds of Silence."

With the cover, Audio Fuzz wrote the group "perfectly captured all the hidden nuances of the song, and when they play the instrumental break, it truly brings shivers up and down your spine." In August 2020, the band shared a video for their track "Swan Song," which garnered over 160,000 views on YouTube. The band's latest EP, Rumor, produced by Grammy Award winner John Davis, arrived last year.

It was after scrolling through the news about another round of war between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza that Gliksberg found inspiration for "Cover Up." Gliksberg shares, "I'm from the Middle East so I was used to seeing this kind of trauma on TV, but this time, I suddenly realized that we've been through this exact scenario many times before."

Gliksberg adds, growing increasingly weary of the constant strife, that the song at its core, is anti-war. "Growing up in Israel, I have seen, firsthand, that war is the definition of insanity. We keep expecting a different result, and nothing changes. It keeps happening, cyclically and seasonally this cold winter of humanity keeps coming back. War is not a solution. It won't solve your problems. In a bird's eye view, everyone will lose and nobody will win until we decide war itself is over."

The accompanying visual for "Cover Up" directed by Lena Rudnik aims to capture the human experience, anguish and trauma associated with war, not just the violence.

Describing her vision for the video, Rudnik explains, "I haven't ever lived in a war zone but I do rage battles against my own self-destructive stories. For this video, I was interested not just in cycles of war and violence, but the cyclical nature of personal trauma - our consciousness's ability to replay harrowing loops, until the story we've created becomes the only reality. What is macrocosmically displayed in a war narrative is recapitulated in microcosm in every personal trauma cycling in an individual's psyche."

In what Gliksberg describes as 'Lord of the Flies' meets 'Mad Max,' the video shows two groups of kids in 'battle' donning makeshift crowns and makeup as they populate a remote beach, armed with water balloons. A stirring scene of grief, catharsis and loss puts the true human aspect of war on full display and draws the video to a close.

Rudnik continues, "I imagined the song's narrator singing this ballad in an anguished loop and wanted to envision her story in an attempt to shift the story from the political into the personal. I always hated water balloon fights as a child, they were terrifyingly real and I felt like a helpless victim. I wanted nothing to do with them! Every filmmaking choice came out of the idea that for the kids, who can so easily internalize battle narratives, this story was as real as the Battle of Normandy."

The powerful, cinematic video for Late Sea's track "Cover Up" directed by Lena Rudnik is out now. Keep up with all things Late Sea on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Watch the new music video here: