We are living in dark and uncertain times — some, perhaps, might consider this a “ghost story” — so let us offer a balm: the musician Moses Sumney, and his sublime music video for “Cut Me.” Released Tuesday, it serves as the perfect entry into the drug that is his voice: It whines and soars in and out of harmonies, singing about a desire to err toward his more self-destructive, self-sabotaging tendencies. “When I’m weary / And so worn out / Ooh, when my mind’s clouded / And filled with doubt / That’s when I feel the most alive,” he sings at the song’s start. “Masochistic kisses are how I thrive.” “Cut Me” is rich and vivid; Sumney’s sound is full-bodied and alive. (If you haven’t read Hua Hsu on Sumney for The New Yorker, you are under strict orders to do so immediately, please.) In the video, which Sumney directed himself, every shot is a work of art: He rips off an oxygen mask, he takes a stage, lets his body jerk like he exists at the whims of his worst — but most satisfying — impulses. The other tracks from the first part of his recently released double album, græ, are just as divine.
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