Song of the Week: ‘I Feel Fine’ by Reptaliens

Image: Captured Tracks
We're past the point of needing one single anthem for These Unprecedented Times, but Reptaliens—the Portland pop-rock outfit led by married couple Cole and Bambi Browning—have tossed in a welcome addition to the bounty.
"And I think I've lost my mind / Spending all this time inside," Bambi observes in the opening seconds of "I Feel Fine," the tongue-in-cheek first single from the group's January LP, Multiverse. It's a simple number, driven by shuffling drums and a hazy synth line that floats above the organic instruments. That synth, plus an IV drip of reverb that accumulates as the track wears on, elevates the operation somewhere a little mystical—it's a song about boredom that sounds like an attempted escape from it. ("We ran out of drugs to do / So we started sniffing glue," goes one key couplet.)
The single comes complete with a trippy, sun-bleached video from director Laura Callier. Shot somewhere in Southern California, the clip follows a listless protagonist into a cemetery, loops in some zombie stuff, and culminates in a bloody dance party drenched in VHS distortion.
You can check out the video below, and below that, check out Portland Monthly's Songs of the Week playlist, updated with fresh tracks every Friday: