Girlpool - “Chinatown” (Official Video)

The frenetic energy of Girlpool’s “Blah Blah Blah” and the deep, bluesy grooves of “Jane” originally drew my attention to the L.A. duo, but their new single “Chinatown” veers off in a different direction. The track has a slower, sweeping pace, and the video of Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker goofing off in the song’s namesake neighborhood of Los Angeles captures a specific feeling of wandering with no real purpose. Sometimes those unplanned hang out sessions end up being the memories we treasure most when we’re looking back.

“Do you feel restless when you realize you’re alive?” the pair wonder in the same interlocking harmonies featured on their debut self-titled EP, but there’s no despair in the asking. After all, it’s these kinds of vulnerabilities that characterize Girlpool’s strength. “Being vulnerable is perceived as this weak thing when it isn’t,” Harmony said of the duo’s music. “There’s strength in it, and all the music I truly love embodies this vulnerability.” On “Chinatown,” they prod at mundane annoyances like biting your nails when you’re nervous and sidle up to existential questions with the same honesty. W