wojtek the bear – tonic youth (video premiere)

Following on from the release of their debut album, a talent for being unreasonable, last May, Glasgow four-piece wojtek the bear are back with their first new music of 2019. tonic youth is the first of four singles set for release throughout the year via Scottish Fiction, with the aim to put them out together on a limited edition 10'' in the autumn.

"The song is about a crisis of confidence I had when I first moved to Glasgow from Wishaw in my early 20's," lead singer and guitarist Tam Killean tells us of tonic youth. "For the first time in my life I came into contact with people who'd travelled a lot, had what I considered at the time to be more life experience than me and I just felt completely out of my element. Up until that point I'd never really thought twice about the cycle I'd been in from 15 onwards of just rattling anything I could get my hands on and getting steaming as much as I could."

Although peppered with feelings of regret – 'If I hadn't spent my youth with all those cheap pills and tonic wine' – tonic youth begs the question: 'Would it be better?' Even with Killean's mournful-sounding vocals, the upbeat bassline, bright strings and jubilant handclaps of its instrumentation make for a (perhaps ironically) positive and uplifting sound.

The Skinny are delighted to be premiering the music video for tonic youth, directed by Kris Boyle, which you can watch in the above YouTube player (click here if it’s not displaying correctly). "The video treatment was the organic result of several conversations prior to filming," Boyle tells us of the video’s inception. "The most important thing for me was doing my best to parallel colour with the symphonic sound of the song. I’m a big fan of colours being at war with the obvious."

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tonic youth is released on 3 May via Scottish Fiction; wojtek the bear play Drummonds, Aberdeen, 3 May; Stereo, Glasgow, 4 May; Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, 9 May; The Green Room, Perth, 10 May; The Tooth & Claw, Inverness, 6 Jul; MacArts, Galashiels, 19 Jul

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