On October 21 Baltimore’s Pinkshift will release their debut album Love Me Forever. Now they have shared a new taste of the album via the latest single “in a breath.” The band is known for crafting music that is equal parts pop-punk and 90’s era grunge, and the song – a tender ballad featuring Pinkshift’s Ashrita Kumar at the piano and on vocals – shows another side to them, exposing the powerful vulnerability that drives the band’s creativity behind their usual breakneck melodies. Written by Kumar in 2018 they say:

“‘in a breath’ is from my heart. It’s a song I’ve held on to for years. it’s a dive into my core, my greatest hopes, desires, loneliness, traumas, and fears. It’s a song about feeling dissociated from my body and fighting to stay alive despite it. it explores the existence of an impossible reality, contemplates the existence of a god, and contemplates our capacity to love and be loved. It’s about guilt, shame, redemption, and acceptance.”

The video for “in a breath” was directed by Sunny Singh (aka hate5six). Fresh off documenting the Rage Against the Machine Reunion, Singh’s first proper-music video is a change of pace from their popular YouTube channel which has gained acclaim documenting the hardcore-scene live. They say: “Capturing the authenticity of a live performance is what I’ve always been drawn to. It’s the space I’m most interested in exploring and refining. It’s also the reason why I’ve turned down every offer to do a choreographed and scripted music video. With ‘in a breath,’ I set out to create something that would allow me to render their live performance into something cinematically organic.

Ashrita’s talent as a vocalist and pianist radiates outward in this song, so I wanted to produce a visually minimalist piece that kept them at the center and instead drew its dynamics from manipulated camera motion. What emerged is an uncut, orbiting shot around them and the piano, the parallax creating a gravitational force between the viewer and Ashrita’s burning sincerity for 287 seconds.”