Last week, Oceanator announced their sophomore album, Nothing’s Ever Fine. The Elise Okusami-led indie project will drop the album on April 8th, 2022. In addition to the new album news, Oceanator also released its lead single, “Bad Brain Daze,” along with a music video directed by Chris Farren.
The new song is a peppy powerpop track about, well, a bad brain day. Another bad brain day/I can’t seem to shake – what a mood, right? I could probably listen to this song at least three times a week and relate to it fiercely. Pandemic struggles are definitely bringing the ol’ anxiety fog up a lot lately, so it’s nice to have a song like this to remind us that we’re not alone in those feelings.
But despite the depressing concept of an inescapable funk, “Bad Brain Daze” is actually a very uplifting song. There’s an undercurrent of resilience to it. Okusami sings about how she feels stuck and worries that this feeling will never pass, but while the anxiety pushes those thoughts to the forefront (and, consequently, to the forefront of the song), the song still repeats an encouraging mantra: go to bed and start again tomorrow.
The song also boasts a ton of top-notch collaborations. That uplifting saxophone solo comes courtesy of Jeff Rosenstock, and there are a ton of guest vocals singing on the chorus, too, including Lily Mastrodimos (Long Neck), Jer Berkin (Crash Nebula/The Sonder Bombs), Devin McKnight (Maneka), Josh Robbins (Late Bloomer), David Combs (Bad Moves), Sarah Blumenthal (Alright), and Ashley Kossakowski (Groupie). “It’s a chorus of friends all going through it,” Okusami said in a statement.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Oceanator’s 2020 album Things I Never Said, and the Left of the Dial live session we had the pleasure of doing with them last year. Nothing’s Ever Fine will be released April 8th via Polyvinyl records.
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