By Hannah Newman

Charlie Hickey, up-and-coming indie-rock artist, releases music video for new single “Ten Feet Tall” featuring Phoebe Bridgers. The single is introducing Hickey’s debut EP, Count the Stairs, co-written and produced by Marshall Vore, one of Bridgers’ long-time collaborators. The album is set to launch late February and will also include Hickey’s 2020 hit, “No Good at Lying.” 

The “Ten Feet Tall” music video, directed by Zoe Donahoe and Adam Sputh, perfectly encapsulates romantic nostalgia with its early 90s video-quality clips of Hickey and his friends hanging around highway bridges and dusty baseball fields. America’s indie/folk-rock icon, Bridgers herself, provides accompanying harmonies and a self-indulgent cameo. Viewers can see Bridgers and Vore riding on scooters with Hickey and friends in the background, all of them zig-zagging on California pavement. 

However, what makes “Ten Feet Tall” especially nostalgic is the contrast of the soft and sweet high notes Hickey effortlessly hits along with the grungy guitar placement, both cementing the song in a musical decade we all surely miss and long for. “Everybody looks so happy / No one here has to pay their rent,” Hickey begins the song. “Well, it’s not like I do / There’s not a problem here that can’t be solved / with liquor, stickers, and strawberry moons.” If we consider the tender lyrics, especially the tender lyrics, the entire track proves it has been dipped with going-back-in-time feelings and images. “Ten Feet Tall” is certainly a great first impression of what Hickey’s debut album will sound like, which is breathy and beautiful, inspiring and comforting.