The Pauses' Tierney Tough releasing debut solo EP (watch the video for "Apartment 54")

The Pauses singer/multi-instrumentalist Tierney Tough is releasing her debut solo EP, A Farce To Reckon With, on July 9. It was co-produced by Jim Dreffen and mixed by frequent Pauses collaborator J. Robbins of Jawbox, and it includes two original songs and a cover of The Zombies‘ Odessey and Oracle classic “Friends of Mine” with help from Cursive‘s Patrick Newbery and Shawn Alpay (Laura Stevenson, Matt Pond PA, How To Dress Well).

We’re premiering lead single “Apartment 54,” which is a little cleaner than The Pauses and relies more on acoustic pianos than distorted guitars and buzzing synths, but it’s still in that same realm of catchy, quirky indie rock. About the song and video, Tierney says:

I let the overactive part of my brain run wild on “Apartment 54” in an attempt to come to terms with isolating circumstances that I was in during lockdown. I had moved to a new city and was living on my own for the first time. With family and friends miles away and not really being able to explore, I just tried to keep my head down and stay busy with projects, but was mostly in denial and slightly on the edge of losing it. Some things kept me sane though. I was learning how to dance, listening to a lot of ABBA, and was also becoming fascinated with the brilliant fourth-wall-breakage on It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. He would talk to the camera and then have these low budget romantic foggy dream sequences with sexy 80’s ladies, that I just thought were so funny. I imagined recreating a similar scenario in my apartment, but instead, it was a lo-fi discotheque taking over. I loved the idea of juxtaposing something so glamorous with something so ordinary, and having all of these mundane domestic things come to life… like fog coming out of the AC vent, the ceiling fan morphing into a disco ball, the rug turning into an illuminated dance floor, sounds from the drum of the washing machine being the dance beats, etc…

Since it’s such a descriptive song, the concept for what a visual could be pretty much came at the same time as the lyrics. I would have loved to pull off a crazy live action shoot with all of that stuff happening in real time, but it didn’t seem possible. It just made a lot more sense to miniaturize everything, so I built a tiny dollhouse set and filled it with little furniture, a mini me, a mini pup, and a few surprise reference props here and there. The director and I decided to add in some real life shots after the fact, to cut back and forth between the fantasy and reality worlds, which I think ended up representing the context of the song perfectly.

Watch below…