First Watch: Liima, 'Amerika'

America, in a new video from the Danish electro-pop band Liima, is anything but the promised land. Broken down appliances litter muddy yards; rusted cars lumber past depressed strip malls and boarded up houses; the youth pass their time taking selfies, dining on junk food, sleeping in or just staring blankly into the middle distance.

"The water makes you sick, America," sings frontman Casper Clausen. "I'm hoping now, you're hoping now, we're hoping now. I'm hoping for America."

"Rasmus [Stolberg] and I kept going back to this idea that everybody's anxious and that whatever we're doing to distract ourselves from these anxieties is no longer working," director Olivier Groulx tells us via email. "That feeling of not being able to outrun it is what got us started. We knew early on that shooting it on iPhone was only way to go, it gave us great opportunities to experiment and play with what is probably the most ubiquitous camera."

Liima is a new group featuring Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg of Danish act Efterklang, along with Finnish percussionist Tatu Rönkkö. "Amerika" is from the band's debut album, ii, due out March 18 on 4AD.

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