Every few years such fresh political controversy overturns a page in the dictionary and uncovers a curious bit of terminology to be added into the common vernacular. We’ve seen scandals (and near-scandals) bear fruit with such words as gerrymander, prorogue, impeach and, most recently, collusion. Of course, it isn’t always applied to presidential elections, and as Joel Plaskett points out in his latest single, most of us have been colluding on the regular whether we know it or not.
“Collusion” was born of Plaskett’s mission to serendipitously wrap up his 44th year with a quadruple album consisting of 44 songs. For that he travelled to Memphis Magnetic Recording in Tennessee in to work with Doug Easley, who had recorded Thrush Hermit’s Sweet Homewrecker back in 1996.
As legend has is, Easley had framed the invitation as, “Come on down, man. We’ll collude.”
Plaskett arrived in Memphis on April 18, 2019, the night of his 44th birthday. After driving so many kilometers with those words and thoughts of a troubled world rattling around in his head, the song had already formed itself along side them.
“We recorded ‘Collusion’ in Memphis, Tennessee on April 19, 2019. It was first take live off the floor into one microphone and the song seemed like a fitting way to start the album set,” says Plaskett.
The video itself was filmed much closer to home, and gives a behind the scenes looks at the the creative process for the albums’s cover art: a livingroom scene set at the edge of the ocean. Shot at Cape Breton Island in early September, the video pieces together the illuminated quadrants that mirror Plaskett’s titular synchronicity as he counts down his 44 years in a style that blurs Bob Dylan and Lou Reed if you squint just a little.
As of yet, there has been no immediate evidence made available confirming that the Russian government played a role in the production of this video.