Indie electronica duo, Paragon Cause, released their new album, Autopilot, their third full length in total, once again involving their frequent collaborator Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes. Opening track and newest single, Two To Play, pairs to an impressive video mainly of 8-bit video game visuals, animated by Luigi Salas.
The band comment on the video: "Two To Play was the first song we recorded for the Autopilot sessions with Sune Rose Wagner (The Raveonettes). At first, we didn’t like it and we almost deleted it, and now it’s one of our favorite songs on the album. We wanted a dreamy shoegaze, powerful kind of song, and that’s what we ended up with. The emotion of the music was critical, we wanted the intro to be very simple and classic sounding, purposely a bit raw. Then, as the character in the song comes to an epiphany, the music widens and opens up. We are proud we were able to capture that. Ironically, the song is about doing things for yourself and not allowing others to influence your decisions. But at the same time, it felt like a game a person can play with themselves. So we asked ourselves, who plays the game? That brought us to the idea of creating a video game, but in a modern retro futuristic 8bit Halifax, Canada. Again the idea of time came into play. We connected with an animator, Luigi Salas and pitched our story. A women lost in a crowd of brainwashed followers. The demon preacher is actually, the ‘ghost’ on the cover over the Autopilot album. The women attempts to escape the demon preacher who never catches her but, regardless, she can not escape her demons and was part of the game. We also wanted to write a bit of a love letter to the late 90’s/early 2000’s Halifax Music Scene. We worked hard to put a lot of Easter Eggs in there. Halifax inspired us to be musicians and the nod is a bit of a thank you."
Two To Play is a fascinating opener for Autopilot, as it begins the album with a driving post punk sound, showing sings of resolution and vigor. The song is themed on the idea of catering to other people's needs.
Michelle Opthof explains the lyrical approach: "When I was writing the words, I realized that I have this desire to make everyone happy and please people, which a lot of other people have. In that moment I realized, ‘you know what? No, I am not going to seek the approval of everyone. I am just going to go it alone and do my own thing.’ And it wasn’t about being petulant and selfish, it was about confidence and relying on my own talents and opinions and feelings – putting myself first."
Despite all the aforementioned wavering at the song's early stages, Two To Play turned out quite fine, as did the rest of Autopilot on which Paragon Cause come off as a fully grown and reliable act.
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