Eight years ago, RAC (formerly known as the Remix Artist Collective) started out as a group of producers and DJs united under one creative mission: to reacquaint fans with beloved indie jams via remixes. That idea has since evolved into a one-man show, with the group’s founder André Allen Anjos now releasing original songs on his own under the RAC moniker. He made his solo debut with last year’s Strangers, and has spent the summer releasing freebies as part of a monthly singles series.
For one of the project’s highlights, the road-trip anthem “Back of the Car,†which features Nate Henricks, Anjos enlisted Girls’ Alex Karpovsky for a less-conventional take on the song’s tongue-in-cheek energy. “A surrealist and absurdist interpretation of the song really made sense to me,†Anjos says. “I think most people might interpret the song in a literal sense of a road trip, but Alex’s vision struck me as really smart and inventive.â€
Karpovsky, who’s also directed recent videos for Tanlines and Kopecky, had an idea that involved bringing in Saturday Night Live’s Sasheer Zamata and Vogue sex columnist Karley Sciortino (a.k.a. Slutever) to play two women who share an intense passion for pepperoni pizza — and each other. “Together with my directing partner, Teddy Blanks, I wanted to push the chorus of this super-catchy song [’We’re living out the back of the car’] to a comedically absurd late-summer horizon, where ridiculous glints meld with screwball shimmers under a soft, hazy glow,â€Â Karpovsky explains. Their story hits peak absurdity when Sciortino’s crush on Zamata escalates from making out to fantasy weddings to kidnapping. Karpovsky also cameos in this modern-day twisted fairy tale.