ephemeral // matty healy

all-nighter

1975_bdayparty_final_vid.mp4

Blair clicked the link at the top of her inbox. It was nearly noon, but she could hardly keep her eyes open. She and Ronan had sped through the last steps of compiling the video. Sound objects were difficult to line up, but everything was synced and ready. Officially.

She adjusted her seat and got comfortable in her chair as the file started to play. The Matty in the video was choppy and robot-esque, just the way they wanted. She nearly cringed upon hearing her own voice in the video, even if it was less recognizable through the electronic filters. Video Matty then hands over his handheld devices and steps into a magic forest, flooded with old and new memes.

The digital detox idea was something we grabbed from one of Matty's abstract lists, same with the Narcissus reference. Ronan liked that one especially. The only thing he liked more than sci-fi was folklore.

By the end of the video, Blair felt satisfied. She had no notes, comments, suggestions, or questions. Finally. She stuck a thumbs up above her computer for Ronan to see. He poked his head over.

"Good?" he asked excitedly. 

"Yes, I think we have a call to make." She said, already picking up her phone.

-

"Hey, what's up?" George rolled his eyes as Matty scampered out of the studio. They still had to add final touches to some parts of the album, but it was clear that they would not be getting done today. He reached for the water bottle at his feet.

"When is that guy going to get a clue?" Adam asked with an eye roll. "This gal's not into him."

"You skeptic," Ross piped up, playing with the effects on the keyboard. He settled on a mock synthesizer style with thick reverb as he toyed with the keys. "Why would she not like him? Don't they have history or something?"

"Yes, but it's all been very ambiguous," George said haughtily. "I'm frankly quite bored of it. It may have been cute at the beginning, but they've clearly both got feelings for each other." They looked out the glass of the studio and saw Matty, still holding the phone to his ear, jumping around and kicking his legs off the ground.

"What do you think she told him?" Ross asked.

"I want to have your baby, Matty. It's always been you!" Adam held his hands to his face and made kissing noises before Matty burst through the door again.

"It's done," he said excitedly. He was vibrating like he had drank too much coffee. "The video's done."

The rest of the band didn't speak until George broke the stillness after a moment. "Call Jamie, see how soon we can release it." He started to pack his bag, because clearly the recording session was over. Matty had gotten too jittery and worked up to focus on work. He stopped jumping when he called Jamie, but he was still just as animated as his arms flailed wildly.

"Alright. Any bets?" Ross surveyed. "When can we see this masterpiece? Or will Matty be so excited that he'll skip the step of approval?" Adam hummed and hawed as he unplugged his guitar from his pedals and amps.

"My bet is that Jamie will tell him to calm down, because the earliest we could release it would be a month from now," he guessed. "How about you?"

"Funny, I would have said that Jamie would say we need to meet in person to talk about a solid timeline for releases. The whole time, Matty has been going on about People being the lead single, so we may have to sit on this for a while."

"This was never going to be the lead single or even the last single and he knew that," George huffed and started toward the door. "It just depends on how much he's going to fight for it and how much Jamie's going to budge, which I think will not be long."

"Let's still grab drinks to celebrate, though. Still a pretty exciting thing." Ross said.

"I'll meet you there, I'm going to get a head start," George muttered as he walked away.