It’s already been decided that Rich Aucoin’s new album, United States, is the most anticipated of the year. Having already released two slapping singles, “Reset” and “How It Breaks”, not to mention the current state of the album’s namesake we’re expecting something between a dance party and a riot. Aucoin’s latest single, “Dopamine” is more reflective of his manner for composing the album itself: through a two-year-long bike ride around the perimeter of the country with a camera in tow. Far more relaxed than the previous singles, “Dopamine” offers a mantra of mindfulness and introspective verses better suited to coasting through the countryside.
“I wrote this while riding each day alone across the country; it was one that was started in Arizona but took a while to decide on its lyrics,” says Aucoin.
“Riding for 8-10hrs a day meant a lot of time to reflect which could be both happy and sad and always returning to the present assured a renewed excitement to be alive. Lots of nostalgia and sentimental feelings in the verses remembering the past – ‘these are people who’ve come and gone and left me where I am’ or ‘all the things that have gone away and faded from my life’. But, it re-examines that those things are still with you in your mind always.
“While the process of nostalgia can be saddening, the excavation of memories can be joyous if you’re holding them in the present and not trying to dig yourself into where they are in the depths. The mantra of ‘all there is right now is clear; all we have right now is here’ is a simple line for bringing oneself back to the surface and into the present moment after such a dive. You can’t go back in time and it’s a fool’s errand to try to make something the way it once was, you can only bring the past and hold it in the present to feel what you need from it to carve the next new memory. Every time I practice this kind of being in the moment of mindfulness, I feel like I’ve woken up from sleep and am more able and ready to live.
“For the video, I knew I wanted to explore something similar to Robert Frank’s journey of the United States when creating his masterpiece photo-book, The Americans. Inspired by this fellow foreigner’s look at America, I took many photos for the purpose of crafting something similar for this video but unfortunately all the photos that weren’t posted in my blog for Paste Magazine, were lost after the tour had concluded. Nevertheless, I edited down the 264 remaining photographs to the 83 in this video; the same number as in Frank’s seminal work. Frank coincidentally has also called Nova Scotia home and where he passed away last year.”
Rich Aucoin’s United States is due out September 18, 2020 via Haven Sounds.