Photo Ops Drops “Take the Long Way” In Advance of ‘Pure of Heart’ Album

Over at the bottomless gift bag that is Archive.org, there’s a 1956 film called Dance Americana, a documentary about the evolution of dance culture in the States from the Civil War to the infancy of the Rock & Roll era. 

And for the video of the new single by Photo Ops, the sonic vehicle of Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Terry Price, elements of this film are repurposed to create a hazy public domain daydream echoing the chill of classic mid-00’s indie pop that envelops the tune.

“You have the visualization of an older dance trend juxtaposed with the song about the mystery of change – and literally moving westward,” he tells American Songwriter.  “During the song’s climax and outro, the dance duo beautifully represents the lyrics ‘I’ll never hold you better, than when we move together.’  Caroline Sallee [aka Caroline Says] found the footage, and when the video was presented to me, I found that marriage of visual and musical really interesting.” 

“Take The Long Way” serves as keen forecasting of the shape of the Photo Ops sound to come. If his sophomore effort, 2016’s Vacation, confirmed Price’s’ reputation for combining beautifully melodic production with raw emotionality, then the forthcoming Pure At Heart asserts his prowess for perfecting a very distinctive blend of 4AD dreampop and folky wisdom inspired by Price’s time listening to and studying Bob Dylan‘s old Sirius XM show, “Theme Time Radio Hour” during his commutes through the Southwest. 

For “Take The Long Way” in particular, however, Price tells American Songwriter its direction is attributed to enduring a series of cultural events in the last four years amidst his own personal transition into a new life in Los Angeles.

“I was sitting in my apartment and Leonard Cohen had just died,” he explains. “Having just moved to LA, I was thinking about the change in landscape you witness as you drive east to west. Between the strangeness of moving and the political shifts that have taken place over the last few years, I wanted to capture the feeling of driving into the unknown future and being mystified by it.  Like a lot of my songs, they are kind of lullabies to help cope with uncertainty. Take the long way. I’ll wait.”

Since his 2013 debut, How to Say Goodbye, Price’s work as Photo Ops has garnered over a million plays on Spotify. And there’s no doubt, based on the lowkey splendor of the audio/visual presentation imbuing “Take The Long Way,” a million more spins await upon the release of Pure of Heart on September 18 via Western Vinyl.

Photo: Bliss Braoudakis