Moviola Released Video For New Song “Slage Wave”

On August 29, Columbus Ohio’s Moviola will release their new album Earthbound on Dromedary Records (pre-order). Today the band is excited to release their album’s lead single “Slage Wave” and an accompanying music video. The song debuted today at Magnet and is on all streaming platforms now for any playlist shares. 

The band’s Greg Bonnell says:  

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell. Birth, school, work, death—not necessarily in that order. Fight the power with guitars.”

The “Slage Wave” video, shot and edited by Jake Housh, transforms the age-old question “Which side are you on?” into a darkly comic scene at a hot dog stand ruled by a domineering boss and his “management by iPad.” Featuring union organizing, the ghost of Johnny Paycheck, surreal humor, and a hint of heartbreak, the video stars the band in a world just one step off from our own.

On their 11th album, and 30 years into their journey, Moviola move forward with a world-weary stride, embracing contradiction, complexity, and clarity. Earthbound is their most personal, urgent, and cohesive work to date.

In the cracks of the musical Rust Belt, Moviola have quietly—over three decades—built an expansive catalog: 11 albums, countless 7-inch singles, a radio show, and a concert film, spanning everything from 4-track fuzz-pop to hi-fi country soul. With five equal singers and songwriters, Moviola is greater than the sum of its parts—a living example of democratic ideals and Gestalt theory in action. They record themselves in studios they built, write and perform fully realized concert films, and operate as much like a prankster art collective as a band. It’s Midwestern EGOT energy in a parallel universe. A small but loyal cadre of labels, writers, and fans has followed along.

Founded by Jake Housh in 1993 in a duplex near Ohio State, Moviola’s early 45s and 1994’s Frantic sounded less like their Columbus punk peers and more like “Neil Young’s noisy nephews” (LA Weekly). Throughout their early career, they played live with kindred spirits like Fruit Bats, Flaming Lips, Calexico, Califone, and Guided By Voices, but it was collective experimentation, happy accidents, and DIY recording in basements and attics that became their true calling. Albums like The Year You Were Born (1997), Glen Echo Autoharp (1998), and The Durable Dream (1999) saw them traverse buzzing lo-fi rock, Space Echo® folk, pure pop, and everything in between. Frequent split singles paired them with friends like The Handsome Family, Cobra Verde, Tobin Sprout, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Eric’s Trip. Later records—Rumors of the Faithful (2001), East of Eager (2004), Dead Knowledge (2007), as well as the singles compilation Broken Horses (2008), Scrape and Cuss (2019), and Broken Rainbows (2022)—chart a path to Earthbound.

True to their unique approach, Earthbound contains multitudes: each member contributes songs, resulting in music that’s sometimes lush, sometimes raw, but always unmistakably Moviola. Recorded in Columbus, Brooklyn, and Brattleboro, it’s their most focused and unambiguous work yet. Five voices, one sound—a band of brothers, wasting no words. Can a group hit its stride after 30 years? Moviola makes the case. Listen in.