Shot and recorded on June 11, 2014, "Above My Ground" is a barnburner featuring frontman Adam Schatz delivering a sermon on trying to reconnect with something that feels lost, in which he manages to turn the cameras around and include the crew in a full room sing-along that builds up from the floor and blasts through the ceiling into the NYC skyline. The song was the opening track on Landlady's 2014 album, Upright Behavior, and it was the 5th and final song they performed for us that same year in the Serious Business studio in SoHo, NYC.

About the Band:

There's a character in the New York music scene who we at [redacted] affectionately refer to as Doctor Schatz. In addition to producing and playing with a diverse range of other acts (Man Man, Zongo Junction, Father Figures, Renata Zeiguer, Japanese Breakfast, et al), he is the creative force at the center of the whirlwind of a band known as Landlady. The project's compositions are complex yet catchy, and the lyrics are crafted in such a way that they seem to aim for hopeful, Flaming Lips-style psychedelic sing-alongs. All in all, there's an intense brightness emanating from Adam in everything he does, and these songs are a direct expression of that.

Session Credits:

  • produced by Maia Macdonald, Jeremiah McVay, and Bryan Bruchman
  • recorded + mixed by Travis Harrison at Serious Business Music
  • directed + edited by Jeremiah McVay
  • shot by Bryan Bruchman, James McCormick, and Jacqueline Soller
  • all music is by the artist and presented here with their express written permission

This video is part of Stereoactive Media's RedactedAV project, in which we're reintroducing A/V elements back into the online ecosystem that were previously made unavailable.