Finneas is stone alone in the COVID-haunted video for, “A Concert Six Months From Now,” the first single from the producer/songwriter’s upcoming debut album. The 24 year-old singer announced the name and release date of his first full length on Thursday morning (August 5), revealing that Optimist will drop on Oct. 15.
“Hope you enjoy, I can’t wait for you to hear the whole record,” he said in a tweet before debuting the Sam Bennett-directed video, in which he emerges onto the storied stage to the shouts of an invisible crowd. Squinting through the spotlights, he meanders around as the song’s gentle acoustic strumming ushers in his tale of a love that spans the years, lingering, but never quite fading away.
“2011 You stole my heart here/ And I couldn’t listen/ To that band for years/ Till that night last summer/ When you reappeared/ Forgot how bad I wanted this,” he sings while stumbling through the blinking stage lights in a hushed tone after an opening verse that hints at the current anxiety about slowly re-emerging from our pandemic bubble.
“Your favorite band Is back on the road/ And this fall they’re playing/ The Hollywood bowl/ I’ve already purchased/ Two seats for their show/ I guess I’m an optimist,” the Grammy-winning producer sings on the first taste of the 13-track follow-up to his 2019 debut EP, Blood Harmony. By mid-song the arrangement swells to a roar as Finneas runs through the empty seats in the Bowl, with fountains of sparks shooting up all around him.
Now that Finneas has helped his sister Billie Eilish launch her sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, he can begin concentrating on his own work in a year in which he’s already popped up in the video for James Blake’s “Say What You Will” single and paired up with Ashe on “Till Forever Falls Apart.”
The track list for Optimist is:
“A Concert Six Months From Now”
“The Kids Are All Dying”
“Happy Now”
“Only a Lifetime”
“The 90s”
“Love is Pain”
“Peaches Etude”
“Hurt Locker”
“Medieval”
“Someone Else’s Star”
“Around My Neck”
“What They’ll Say About Us”
“How It Ends”
Watch the video for “A Concert Six Months From Now” below.