Premiere: Fruition time warp to the 1939 World’s Fair in new video, ‘Nothing More Than Spinning’

The hype leading into the 1939 World’s Fair in Corona Park was very real. The New York Times front page boasted one headline reading “Fair Nearly Ready for Gala Opening: 30,000 Rush Work” and the sub-heading “Exposition’s Wonders Emerge in Final Form as Forces Labor Day and Night.” It was the “Dawn of a New Day,” as the official slogan put it, and exhibits included the Westinghouse Time Capsule, sculptor Waylande Gregory’s The Fountain of Atom, and the introduction of the View-Master, amongst other “futuristic” gizmos and gadgets. The promise to the public was a peek into the “world of tomorrow,” and even as World World II charged full-steam six months later, there remained a sense of wonder and hope in what could be.

Bluesy folk-rock outfit Fruition – of Jay Cobb Anderson (vocals, lead guitar, harmonica), Kellen Asebroek (vocals, rhythm guitar, piano), Mimi Naja (vocals, mandolin, electric, acoustic guitar), Jeff Leonard (bass), and Tyler Thompson (drums, banjo) – time warp back to the World’s Fair with their new video for “Nothing More Than Spinning,” premiering today on B-Sides & Badlands. The very folksy, Beatles-bent tune spins as a carousel does, the imagery flapping through actual World’s Fair archival footage, as filmed by Phillip Medicus.

“Oh my sister, you say we’re going backwards / You say we’re going backwards but we’re not / And oh, my brother, you think we’re going forward / You think we’re going forward but we’re not,” Anderson weighs the argument of whether society is progressing or regressing. Perhaps, we’re only really ever standing still, stagnant dark matter that can’t do much else – as the giant rock on which we live is in perpetual motion. Anderson’s vocal is wistful, somehow trapped in the conundrum of all mankind.

On the song and video, Anderson offers this over email: “The fact that we are living on a planet that is spinning at approximately 1000 miles per hour is mind blowing in and of itself,” he says. “And somehow the greatness of our unlikely and fragile existence seems mostly lost on us all. Maybe it all doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it all means more than we can fathom. Some would like to think we are evolving or devolving when the only sure thing is that we are revolving.”

“Nothing More than Spinning” is ripped from Portland, Oregon band’s new album, Broken at the Break of Day, out everywhere now. Check out a rundown of upcoming tour dates here.

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