PREMIERE: Jack Ladder Meets His Match in ‘Lombard Street’ Music Video

July 20, 2023

Jack Ladder released his seventh album, Tall Pop Syndrome, on Friday, 14th July. The album was preceded by the singles ‘Game Over’ and ‘Home Alone’. The latter came with a music video directed by Stephanie Jane Day, whose directing credits include Peach PRC’s ‘Heavy’ and Sarah Mary Chadwick’s ‘Flipped It’.

Ladder employed the services of Day a second time to create a video for album highlight, ‘Lombard Street’. The video is premiering on Music Feeds ahead of its official release tomorrow (21st July).

Jack Ladder – ‘Lombard Street’

The ‘Lombard Street’ video stars Ladder alongside writer and musician Alys Hale, who he cites as the song’s inspiration.

“I enjoyed working with Steph and her team on the ‘Home Alone’ video so much that I asked her to make another one with me,” Ladder said in a statement shared with Music Feeds. “She suggested the classic walking down the street thing and I agreed. Alys was the obvious choice to be the femme fatale as the song is about her. A singer must die.”

Ladder envisioned Tall Pop Syndrome as a leaner, snappier counterpoint to his more elaborate 2021 album, Hijack!, both of which are out via Endless Recordings. “I told Alex Cameron from Endless that because I spent all his money on Hijack! I would write him a ‘hit’ record to ‘win’ it all back,” Ladder said.

The album was co-produced by Presets member Kim Moyes, who provided Ladder with some useful guidance during the process. “I had this niggling feeling that I needed [Moyes] to hear it before it was finished,” Ladder said. “He strongly advised against some of my more backward ideas and gave me a quick mock-up of how he heard it, which I instantly hated and a few hours later realised was genius.”

In terms of stylistic reference points, Ladder had a fairly clear, if somewhat fanciful idea of where the album would sit: “What if Springsteen made Nebraska with a MIDI controller or Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man was produced by Kraftwerk?”

Tall Pop Syndrome is out now via Endless Recordings. Jack Ladder will bring the album to stages around Australia in August.