How did cell phones come to represent both the security of home and an ultimate channel for community? Plastic Picnic copes generously with the pandemic doomscape in their latest track and video, “Pixie.” Warm guitar riffs invite the audience to reflect on the complicated yet familiar task of sustaining one’s inner calm during times of isolation and turmoil. Director Sara Laufer achieves an intentional synesthesia for this conversation by framing the band in fire-burnt voids and shadowed rooms where small screens are the primary light source. 

Band members Emile, Lincoln and Gordon model stillness and “watch madness unfold before [them]” from a distance. Visually, they occupy spaces designed to match Pixies’s instrumental and lyrical echo chamber. Here, chaos and patience are evoked simultaneously in a breath of validating air for this generation. To quote Laufer directly, “the song speaks for itself” and the video holds space for equal self-awareness.