VIDEO PREMIERE | Bodies of Water, "Women in Love"

Bodies of Water captured by way of Zoom; press photo courtesy of the band.

The world's series of socially distanced events have placed us all on a DIY trajectory of home-brewed approaches to all things. In the case of Bodies of Water couple Meredith and David Metcalf; the two recorded their latest album Is This What It’s Like in their Northeast LA garage with the generous assistance from musically inclined friends Alice Lin and Kyle Gladden. From a diet of binging on 60s/70s LPs from Egypt and Lebanon to recording all instrumentation live in their home space; Bodies of Water bathe our ears and consciousness with the rustic warmth of the human experience that encapsulates everything from comedies of error, romance and the sensations/approximations of being/feeling.

Presenting the video debut for “Women in Love”; filmed by the band starring Kate Shelton as Kay, Thom Shelton as Tom, Bernadette Metcalf as the baby and Meredith Metcalf as herself. The video revolves around a wonky and awkward make-out/dance interlude session to a Bodies of Water CD-R after a scallops entrée dinner date. The two make some humorous seated herky-jerky moves to the seductive and sinewy rhythms, as the quirky passion gives away to embarrassing exchanges that eventually see Kay headed for the door. The climactic and comedic finale involves Tom's pleas for Kay to stay and watch him turn into a literal baby, as the band's own Meredith concludes the visual with a humorous postlude address. Bodies of Water's latest song cycle is a down home moody and mature work with a sense of humor that is not afraid to poke fun at male infantilism, dysfunctional states of unions with a true warmth of love and humanism.

Bodies of Water described the process of creating the visual for “Women in Love”:

The stars of the video are our friends, Thom and Kate, and Meredith's and my daughter Bernadette (who just turned one year old! Covid baby). Kate came over first and we filmed her and the baby until Bernadette started crying, which was like 20 minutes (a surprisingly long time). Then Thom came over and the two of them shot their scenes on the couch. Kyle (bass player) came over too, and he and Meredith shot the shit in the kitchen while I filmed Thom and Kate in the other room and fed snacks to the baby while she sat in a high chair next to us. So while Thom and Kate tried to make out on the couch there was a man filming them and a baby next to them, squawking loudly. Very normal stuff. And through it all, they delivered A++ performances! What an inspiration.

This begs a few questions:

1. Are they a real couple? Yes, and VERY much in love.

2. Why did Kyle and Meredith abandon us with a baby while we were trying to film a video? They didn't even realize they'd done this. I could have shouted at them to come take the baby away from us, but I figured that maybe it would be useful to have an anxiety-inducing element right next to us as we filmed.

3. Did this baby trick work? Did it induce the right kind of tension into the scene? I don't know. Thom and Kate were brilliant, of course, but would they have been worse without a yelling baby next to them? Would they have been better? No way to argue counterfactuals. I'd like to believe that putting the baby next to them for the makeout session was a stroke of directorial brilliance, but who knows. The only way to know for sure is to film another video with the baby sitting just out of frame, yelling at the actors, then see how things turn out. We'd better get moving, though, because she's growing up fast and may grow out of this habit soon.

Bodies of Water’s album Is This What It’s Like will be available February 12 via Thousand Tongues.

Cover at for Is This What It’s Like from Bodies of Water.