Sultry and jazz-fueled, the track plays with the relationship between food, the varied flavours of emotions. “Preservatives takes the premise that you are what you eat, and through the power of jazz, invites you to imagine what you would be if all you could eat was frozen, salted, canned and freeze dried”

Once again, the music video for this track was crafted by Claire herself, and underscores the song’s themes, featuring four preserved foods dancing in an homage to the iconic film advertisement, Let’s All Go to the Lobby. The lyrics of the song talk about frozen, salted, canned, and freeze dried food, so you see a frozen box, a bucket of salted meat, a can, and a paper bag of only the finest freeze dried food. They’re dancing in a circle that was animated by Claire herself, and their packaging proves that only the finest comes from Claire Porter and the Stouts.

The music video for this track was crafted by Claire herself, and underscores the song’s themes. It opens with Claire tucked underneath a giant table, hiding from the outside world. Claire then spliced together various vignettes of solo time, creating a feeling of stop motion.  She used her animation skills to overlay the vines, slowly creeping on the furniture, like the loneliness creeping into her life.  Her favourite blue Fender Telecaster becomes her new companion, and offers a nod to Claire’s work as lead guitarist on her upcoming album.

Like many artists, Claire’s recent work reflects her experience of isolation during the pandemic, while simultaneously coping with a deep period of self-reflection.  As she says in the song: "I used to steal my time alone, all the pleasures I have known, mornings contemplating how I’ve grown, I used to steal my time alone.”

Free-spirited, upbeat and surreal, the track’s playful melody contrasts the underlying unravelling of pre-pandemic life, and the inevitable existential questions arising from sudden social isolation. “The song moves through the spiralling feelings that I cycled through over the pandemic, in a silly, upbeat rhythm.” says Claire of the track, “I tried to make it sound as much as possible like a clock. I once heard that if you don’t like something, you can trick your brain by declaring that actually, you do love it. I have since heard that this brain hack doesn’t work at all, but this song is the result of that exercise.  I did not like having that much time alone, but I start the song by declaring “I like to spend my time alone”.