Today Non La releases "Hurtful," the lead single off their sophomore album Like Before.
"With this song I wanted to capture the nuances of non-monogamy," says On.
"However, I think I ended up expressing this feeling that is familiar in every relationship, romantic or not: that there could be some new, exciting distraction that threatens what you have. The song starts relaxed, but as the anxieties grow bigger, the song swells until the music implodes. It ends in chaos."
Listen to the song now.
Coming out of "an 8 year music video retirement" to direct the music video for "Hurtful," Owen Ellis creates the uneasy feeling of ominous tension at a live show, where a concert goer walks the line between stalker and super fan. Check out the video on YouTube!
About the album
Like Before is a 12-track alt-pop meditation on long term relationships, the difficulty of recognizing care in routine, and the struggle to do better than whatever maladapted form of love your parents were modelling. Despite the universality of these themes, Non La brings a specifically queer focus to the genre including tracks discussing meeting your partner in a bathhouse and how/if to ever tell your family (“Dark Room”), and the conflicting insecurities (“Hurtful”) and reassurances (“Like Before”) that arise from non-monogamy.
Pre-orders of the LP, cassette, and digital album are available on Bandcamp and the Mint web store.