It’s been three years since Pom Pom Squad made their debut with Death of a Cheerleader. Whereas that album embodied “young adult chaos,” the follow-up, Mirror Starts Moving Without Me, out today, is shaped by a darker POV.
Co-produced by bandleader Mia Berrin and Cody Fitzgerald, Mirror Starts Moving Without Me pulls from a pile of influences, encompassing horror films, Prince, Alice In Wonderland, David Lynch’s surreal imagery, and the “ghosts” of Electric Lady Studios, where the band tracked their second record. The new video for “Doll Song,” premiering below, matches that haunted feel as Berrin turns into a figurine, based on visions that came to her when she was doing EMDR therapy in college.
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“In them, I was always a doll floating in a pitch-black void,” she says. “Sometimes, I’d be looking through the window of a pink, inflatable, dollhouse or spinning on a big, cream-colored music box. Other times, I’d just be falling through the darkness with no end in sight. I think they symbolized lack of control. At that point in my life, I was struggling to find autonomy — I was constantly at the whim of the people and institutions around me. Starting to take Pom Pom Squad seriously was the thing that helped me find my way back to myself.”
Later today, Berrin will play an album release party at Mercury Lounge in NYC before she heads out for a handful of European dates, including appearances at Pitchfork Paris and London.
See the eerie video for “Doll Song” below.