The dive bars and strip malls of Oklahoma City are captured during the golden hour in this nostalgic, sometimes hallucinatory video for Harper Simon’s latest single, “Bonnie Brae”, directed by George Salisbury. Most celebrated for his video and design work with the famed Oklahoma export The Flaming Lips, Salisbury took Simon (son of Paul) on a tour of the city at the heart of the States—complete with drag queens and disco balls—and shot it all through a dreamy, iridescent lens. ���It seemed familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar,” said the New York-raised, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter of his adventures between the two coasts. “It’s not like what it would look like if you went around Hollywood and tried to shoot in bars. It’s an authentic, American look.” The track is taken from his upcoming psych-influenced second album, Division Street, for which he enlisted the help of producer and Elliott Smith and Beck collaborator Tom Rothrock—and a line-up of guest musicians that reads like a who’s who of groundbreakers in rock, from The Strokes’ Nikolai Fraiture on bass, to Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott and Wilco’s Mikael Jorgensen on synths. For the video, however, Salisbury and Simon kept it quirky, intimate and local. “I thought the gritty vibe was really suited to the lyrics of the song, and maybe the whole album,” explains the musician. “But maybe I’m just at home in a dive bar.” 

Division Street is out now on PIAS Recordings.