Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Boy goes looking for buried treasure at the beach with a metal detector. Boy fails to find coins, but instead finds an old friend—a babely sunbather. OK, it’s a bit unusual, but damn if it isn’t the perfect meet cute for Mild High Club’s new track “Skiptracing.”The two figures [played by model Bleu Archbold and Bradford Walters] look a little lost as their paths wind toward each other—but blank stares directed toward the Pacific Ocean are inevitably replaced by longing looks into each others lives. It’s a classic 70s love story, complete with whimsical dancing and a couple puffs of marijuana. Oh, love!The groovily jazzy track is the perfect sonic landscape for 70s-era LA, a hazy song buoyed by the easy vocals of Alexander Brettin and backed gauzy girl harmonies. Brettin is the ringleader of Mild High Club, and he shot most of the “Skiptracing” video on 8mm film, his style an homage to French New Wave. He credits everyone from Brazilian songwriter Antônio Carlos Jobim to Richard Gere and Patrick Swayze as inspiration for the beachy product, but the biggest reflection is that of Los Angeles itself.Brettin currently lives in the city and built up his own West Coast cred playing with artists like Ariel Pink, R Stevie Moore, and Silk Rhodes. “A lot of the music, literature, and film that inspires me comes from that fruitful era via Steely Dan, Supertramp, R.A. Wilson, Pynchon, Cassavetes… I guess living in LA had me questioning those who were here before and how they approached it,” Brettin explains.Tune in to take a trip across coasts and back in time.Skiptracing, the second album from Mild High Club, comes out via Stones Throw on August 26.
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