OK Go are back with their new single (and video, obviously) ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill’

OK Go have released new single ‘A Stone Only Rolls Downhill’, their first new material in over a decade.

The track arrives alongside a music video premiering on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and serves as the first preview of their upcoming fifth studio album ‘And the Adjacent Possible’, due later this year.

“It’s a tough time to be optimistic. Getting through life requires some faith along the lines of the famous MLK quote: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’,” explains frontman Damian Kulash. “But looking at the world unfurling before me, and especially before my children, it’s hard to find that kind of faith. What do we tell them? That’s what this song is about: trying to be honest but keeping your head up at the same time.”

The accompanying video features 64 videos displayed across 64 phones in a mosaic formation. “Trying to balance the anxiety (which is just realism) with the hope (which is just necessary) can often feel like living in a split screen, and that’s what inspired the video,” Kulash adds. “It’s the most human, DIY version of a split screen that we could come up with. Instead of using digital wizardry to glue multiple videos together, we shot one video for each of several dozen phones and laid them out, side-by-side, as a mosaic of screens. A single image emerges from all these separate pieces working sometimes in harmony and sometimes in discord — the many contradictory parts of ourselves fighting to coalesce as a single whole.”

The band have also announced a North American tour, with tickets going on general sale on 24th January.

The dates in full read:

APRIL
24 Turner Hall Ballroom, Milwaukee, US
25 Riviera Theatre, Chicago, US
26 Majestic Theatre, Detroit, US
27 The Agora, Cleveland, US

MAY
14 The Sound, San Diego, US
16 The Bellwether, Los Angeles, US
18 The Fillmore, San Francisco, US
28 Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, US
30 Royale, Boston, US
31 Union Transfer, Philadelphia, US

JUNE
1 9:30 Club, Washington, US
19 McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, Portland, US
20 Neptune Theatre, Seattle, US
21 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, CA