Last month, Denton, Texas songwriter, Claire Morales, released her third long-player, Lost in the Desert, which followed All That Wanting (2018) and Amaranthine (2015).
This week, Morales is set to release the video for the her latest single, I Don’t Want to Join Your Cult. Created by Robi and Alen Predanič, exclusive to Sun 13, be the first to watch the video below.
Sonically, I Don’t Want to Join Your Cult sees Morales channeling the kind of loose blues folk reminiscent of PJ Harvey’s earliest works. It’s a thread that is prevalent all throughout Lost in the Desert – Morales’ most accomplished release so far.
“This is a song about all the modern cults we take part in daily, consciously or unconsciously,” says Morales of the song. “We bury our own needs and wants and thoughts and opinions in order to belong, in order to be what people need, in order to be loved.”
Morales continues:
“I wrote this one after a breakup. Coming out of a relationship can be like a light coming on in the dark,” she says. “Your eyes blink and adjust, and you start to see things for what they are in this strange way, to process everything that’s happened. You start to find who you are when you have no one to please. You suddenly realize all the habits you formed without really choosing them, the behaviors that you developed together as this unit that may not align with who you are and what you value. I started to think about all the groups in life that we can lose ourselves in: relationships, jobs, religions, fitness classes, friends, families, the list goes on. And I thought about all the control that is exerted over people under the guise of belonging or being a member. This is a song about remembering who you are and not letting the want for love and belonging take you away from yourself. It’s about coming out of people pleasing and reminding yourself that you are indeed that bitch. This song was me having some fun coming into my own and reminding myself that it’s better to be alone than to lose who you are.”
Morales also shares some insight into the video creators.
“I was so lucky to have Robi and Alen Predanič create the music video for I Don’t Want to Join Your Cult.’ They are amazing visual artists and I’ve always been so impressed with their concepts and costumes and use of colour. I very much believe in working with people you respect and trust and allowing them to do what they do best without getting in the way too much. I told them a little rationale about the song and gave them free reign. What they created is so unique and unexpected and uniquely them, which I think works so well with the concept of the song, which is about being yourself at all costs.”
Robi and Alen Predanič also offer comment about the ideas behind the video for I Don’t Want to Join Your Cult:
“Claire told us that the album is about self-discovery in a desert and we immediately loved the vibe. We shot the video in 2021 in an abandoned furniture factory that has since been demolished. We thought it looked like an abandoned town in a desert, so it felt like a good fit. We both love weird, abandoned towns in horror movies like House of wax or the hills have eyes, so this was perfect. Essentially, in the video, we are escaping a cult and running away from our cult leader, because we want to be free and do things our way.”
Lost in the Desert is out now. Purchase from Bandcamp.
