In 2017, South London-based musician JW Ridley caught our attention with an eight-minute epic called “Everything (Deathless).” He’s kept up a steady flow of new music since then, and today, he’s back with a new song called “Glass Eyes,” along with an accompanying lyric video. Ridley worked with producer Dan Carey on “Everything, Deathless,” but this time around he’s recruited Ali Chant, who has worked with other acts such as Perfume Genius, PJ Harvey and Portishead.

The song and its lyric video are both rather melancholic, as creepy yet shrilling strings underscore shots of a bluely lit suburbia. Directed by Dan W. Jacobs, the video captures the emotions of feeling like an outsider in your own home. Despite this blueness, there’s a particular warmth that comes through the with the fuzzy guitar. According to Ridley, “Glass Eyes” was inspired by years of being heavily medicated as a teenager.

Here he is with more on the how the song and video came to be:

I found myself living in a very private world completely disconnected. ‘Glass eyes’ is made up of words I had written years ago when it all started, and some I wrote more recently having finally been able come off it. It’s a song of two perspectives, a conversation/friction between two very different places… Growing up in a very suburban place it kind of felt like you’re waiting for your life to begin, you’re looking at the world from the outside, you live in a private fantasy world, I wanted the video to touch on that.

Check out the lyric video below.

“Glass Eyes” is out today on Handsome Dad Records.