Münster, Germany’s emotive shoegaze act SHUN explores the deeper side of alternative rock with their dreamy and ethereal single “Over Me”, one of the first cuts from their upcoming debut EP, to be released on May 11th on tape via Koepfen Records (digitally via Reptile Music), and we’re stoked to give you its first listen above, along with an insightful backstory. Watch, read up and stay tuned for the whole thing as with more hits than misses and quite stirring line in their smooth performance, the EP showcases everything what SHUN are bringing to the table, and their energy is simply too contagious to not be caught up in.
“Over Me” is about taking a step back, trying to view yourself from the outside and how that will likely make you think twice if your actions and your attitude are really as cool as you might have thought. This search for self-reflection is something that I personally strive for a lot, and I wrote the lyrics at a point in my life where I realized that I was setting myself back by holding back my true feelings and opinions about either my surroundings, other people, whatever – and feeling bad for or restricted by that in the process.
I learned that in most cases, this fear or reluctance to say anything at all (for example because you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings) and waiting until things fall apart will not improve anything for anybody. It seems so obvious that speaking your mind feels a lot better and will also make it way easier for others to deal with you, but I guess sometimes reasoning takes its time to come through. That’s why I tried to give the lyrics a self-deprecating feel here and there.
Prior to recording our EP last fall we were rather skeptical if this song would turn out to be any good at all, but now we consider it one of our own favorite songs we have done. That’s also because our friend Victoria agreed to sing for a part of this song, and we love the result. Thank you, Vicky!
The video was shot by our drummer Jan, mainly on a trip along the Algarve coast in Portugal this spring. He usually makes skateboard clips with his old tape camcorder, and we felt that it would be the right tool to capture that fuzzed-out yet dreamy atmosphere that we try to create through our music. We decided not to do any kind of staging of scenes or people. Instead, the video collects raw footage of natural elements, different landscapes, all that stuff you take in on such a trip that will let you put some distance between yourself and your life at home. While most shots were actually done spontaneously, we tried to edit them in a way that creates a feeling for the back and forth, up and down, running in circles – basically the quarrel that is necessary sometimes in order to get that second look at your choices. It turns out to be a nice representation of the idea behind this song, and we sure hope you like it too!
Catch SHUN at the following stops:
