Hot on the heels of the release of ‘Castor’ earlier in May, Parallama make their return as they plan to unveil their second album before the summer is out. Back again, they are releasing their latest teaser single, ‘Runner’.
Continuing their funked-up, indie-tinged momentum, ‘Runner’ fuses the band’s knack for quick, catchy refrains and boundary-pushing, experimental foundations. Leaning into its unpredictable tendencies, the single has hints of new wave and krautrock embedded in its grooves, demonstrating the group’s vast creative ability.
Explaining the release, Parallama’s founder, Mike Strickland, dives in, The second single, ‘Runner’, grew out of my love for Brian Eno’s albums “Before and After Science” and “Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)”. It started with the bass part and blossomed from there. Though not immediately obvious, the lyrics are about how, in quantum mechanics, things can exist in multiple states at once, and only upon observation do they collapse to a single state based on a set of quantum probabilities. The video for the song communicates this through graphics that show wave interference and quantum entanglement.
Mike added, “I started my musical journey as a classically-trained violinist, and the violin still plays an important part in my music and composition. This song features an electric violin solo, but listeners will most likely think it is a distorted electric guitar. I collaborated with my friend Matt Levy, who added rhythm guitar, added a juicy Robert Fripp-style guitar solo that emerges as the perfect response to the electric violin part, and helped with some production guidance.”
Hailing from the United States, Parallama is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Mike Strickland. Having spent his university years in and out of bands, primarily as a violinist, he has been expanding his musical vocabulary before beginning to write and record his songs at his home studio. Releasing their debut album “Resolution” in 2024, Parallama has continued to build on these strengths.
‘Runner’ is a genre-bending rush of sonic curiosity—Parallama at their most agile and inventive.
