Now is as good a time as ever to catch up with what Omaha-born and Nashville-based Alec Koukol has been up to. Wasting no time after the release of Complex House Plants, his second album as Safari Room, Koukol’s been continuing to flesh out his vibrant and varied indie rock sound since then, and has the follow-up slated for release before the end of 2023.
The fourth single off the still-unannounced record is the bruised yet resolute ‘Broken Things’, propelled forward by energetic drumming and buzzing synths as it charts the aftermath of a breakup, finding the song’s narrator trying to pick up the pieces and move forward, finding resolution as the song builds to a powerful finale: “You’re out of my mind / You don’t live there anymore.” Here’s Koukol on the track: “’Broken Things’” may be one of my favorite songs on the record. I think its simplicity in form and arrangement allowed for an interesting game in orchestration and instrumentation. It spurred from a guitar loop I was tinkering around with and just began to sing over. A handful of verses came out about loss and love, and I pared that down to the three on the track.”
It joins ‘Phantom Limb’, ‘Blunderbuss’ and ‘The Great Outdoors’ as teasers of the forthcoming new record – tune in below, and stay tuned for more from Koukol and Safari Room this year.
