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Art-Rock Premiere Singles

Premiere: Skeleton Flower’s “My Double”

Release date: August 23rd, 2019

Dan Ray August 23, 2019
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Premiere: Skeleton Flower’s “My Double” August 23, 2019

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

Photo courtesy of Skeleton Flower // Photo by Bruce Tom

It’s time to get weird! Today, Dan’s Tunes is excited to premiere new Seattle art-rock group Skeleton Flower’s debut single and music video, “My Double,” from the band’s upcoming self-titled, full-length debut.

Haruko Crow Nishimura and Joshua Kohl — the co-founders of Seattle’s Degenerate Art Ensemble, a live performance collective formed in 1999 that draws inspiration from music, comics, punk, fairy tales, and protest — form the core of this undoubtedly unafraid-to-be-out-there outfit.

The video, filmed in Capitol Hill, embarks on a journey of “High Weirdness” from the get-go. Frontwoman Nishimura and guitarist Kohl playfully galavant across the neighborhood, galloping over colorful sidewalks and emoting fruitfully in front of brightly-colored backdrops. With clarinetist Ambrose Nortness and drummer Adam Koze in tow, the foursome — with their funky, patchwork-like outfits and wonderfully childlike sense of performance — dance through the streets with unconventional outdoor instruments: a bass clarinet, an electric guitar, a snare drum, and, for Nishimura, some kind of Fisher-Price-esque plastic microphone.

Underneath the playful exterior, though, “My Double” casts a darkly hopeful message: “my double isn’t far away / by radio across the night / she’s strong / she’s sure / she’s carrying me.” It’s a track about inevitable change and hardship, and finding the strength from within to make it through.

Making her way through, throughout the video, Nishimura cossets and nurtures to life the “seed” and “sparkling sphere of light” that eventually become her double while simultaneously embracing her inner five-year-old. The journey amounts to an almost-uncomfortably nostalgic trip down memory lane — it’s both reassuring and terrifying to re-open the box on our own Fisher Price plastic microphones.

Whether you tear the box open or just take a peek inside, watch the video below to let out your inner child with Skeleton Flower, and keep on the lookout for more weirdness when the full album drops on September 27th. You can also catch the band live at Neptune Theatre on September 21st for their release show.

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).