Liars have shared the minimal, black-and-white video to accompany the title track off their 2012 record, WIXIW. The video, directed by Alex/2Tone, depicts a man's repeated failed attempts at landing a slam dunk. As 2Tone tells Entertainment Weekly, it's like the Greek myth of Sisyphus, in which a man is punished with unsuccessfully rolling a boulder up a hill for eternity, "as told by a young ballplayer lost in a haze of codeine and prescription weed." Watch it below, via Entertainment Weekly.
Liars guitarist Aaron Hemphill told Entertainment Weekly that, while recording WIXIW, "basketball was the only piece of the outside world we would indulge in." He elaborated on the psychological impact:
Watching the players in a finite contest, whose performance was validated with stats that showed they either played a good or bad game, provided some sense of relief and envy for us. With songwriting, there is no such way to determine if you did a good job. No rankings or points. No time limit telling you to stop... In the "WIXIW" video… we find the world of basketball may not be so clearly defined.
Check out an episode of "Pitchfork Weekly" in which Liars talk about recording WIXIW: