Rivka Rose
Pittsburgh-hailing musician Matt Koenig has been doing it on his own as the Undercover Dream Lovers for a minute now, and he's prepping the project's debut album It's All in Your Head for release early next year. The latest single, "Plane Ride," is an intriguing slice of dream-pop reminiscent of the Flaming Lips' squishier moments circa The Soft Bulletin, not to mention some of that band's contemporaries like the Delgados and Grandaddy. Gently soaring on Koenig's helium-y vocals and sad synths, there's a deeply personal and tragic tale behind "Plane Ride" as well.
"The ‘ride’ is a metaphor for life, and the plane crashing represents death," Koenig explained to the FADER in an email. "I wrote the verse before going on tour and it was about me feeling caught in the distractions of life, but wishing i could just admit I might not have wanted those things in the first place. The inspiration for the rest of the song came after tour. We were on the road with the band Her’s who were in a fatal car accident before our last show. 'Plane Ride' was the first song I worked on after returning, and my mind was still consumed by the loss. It felt personal for me to keep the first verse.. it represented something before the accident, and really paints a picture about how what you may think is important can change in an instant."