Mark April 25th on your calendar—that’s the day Setterwind Records will release the new Ryan Allen LP (pre-order the LP or CD now, see links below). You may know Allen from Extra Arms, Big Life, and Speed Circuit, but his latest effort is a full solo project.

Today, we’re thrilled to premiere the video for After I’m Dead, one of the early singles from the album. The title might suggest something dark, but the song is actually about the enduring quality of art. Allen explains:

“They say we can’t live forever, but if you’ve ever created something, chances are pretty high that your creation is going to outlive you. This is the basic premise of the song After I’m Dead—even after I’m gone, the people that care about me, including my son, can just go on Spotify, or YouTube, or probably some kind of microchip implanted in all our brains (by the time I peace out, anyway) and hear my voice, see me doing goofy/dumb things in videos, and just generally access ‘me’ anytime they want, right from their phones. It’s actually kind of creepy, but also very beautiful that this technology we all have at our fingertips can capture our essence and catalog our experiences and creations until the end of time. What a world, man.”

Where Allen’s last solo record was a rock ‘n’ roll concept album imagining a world with only one rock band left, this new album pays tribute to “staying up late and watching videos by Lemonheads, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, and more on MTV’s 120 Minutes.” And indeed, it’s easy to watch After I’m Dead and picture it airing on that program.

For the video, Allen wanted to capture the DIY recording process behind his upcoming album, Livin’ On A Prayer On The Edge, in which he played all the instruments himself. But rather than just document that, he added a humorous twist:

“I tend to get so lost in recording that I ignore other things around me—like paying attention to my dog. So I decided to make the plot revolve around my dog getting increasingly annoyed with me, to the point where he murders me at the end. Or maybe he doesn’t, and it was just a dream? I’m not really sure—he’s just a dog, and I can’t ask him.”

Check out the video below!

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