been stuck in
a forest lately
and I keep
burning it down
Ruby Haunt have spent more than a decade making music that feels built for empty streets, apartment windows, and the uneasy hour when memory begins rewriting the evening. Since Hurt appeared in 2015, the Los Angeles duo have developed a patient form of dream-pop and slowcore, led by hushed singing, expressive guitars, and arrangements that seem to widen around every private admission. Their DIY discipline has helped turn that quiet persistence into a devoted following, one release at a time.
Big Room, the first glimpse of their eleventh album, Paper Halo, carries that history forward with greater scale and a sharper sense of motion; a meditation on longing, repetition, and the search for something just out of reach. The track opens a new era for the project, pairing a bigger, more immediate sound with the emotional atmosphere that’s always been central to their music. Big Room sets the tone for an album that explores memory, transformation, and the spaces we return to in search of ourselves.
The song circles a plea for rescue, returning to Eden as both shelter and impossible destination. Its central image of a forest repeatedly burned down gives the longing a self-destructive edge, while the search for a lost sound suggests someone trying to recover the signal that once pointed home. Repetition becomes emotional gravity; each return lands with more weight.
That idea comes alive in the accompanying video, a strange romance staged along a darkened highway. Ruby Haunt perform inside a glowing square, contained within the frame while the road keeps stretching beyond them. The imagery carries the nocturnal unease of Lost Highway, then slips onto a motorcycle with two dreamers racing through a tunnel that seems to bend time. When the route opens into a neon city somewhere in Asia, the film trades abstraction for intimacy, following the pair into their dwelling as though the camera has crossed from fantasy into a private life already in progress.
Watch the video for Big Room below:
Big Room is spacious without losing the closeness that anchors their work, and its emotional pull comes from the sense that every escape route leads back to the same unanswered need. Fans of Beach House, Nation of Language, Black Marble, and The Radio Dept. will recognize the balance of cool restraint and bruised feeling, though Ruby Haunt remain firmly inside their own midnight world.
With Paper Halo due in fall 2026, followed by more videos, West Coast dates, Mexico City, and a European tour, “Big Room” opens the album cycle with confidence, mystery, and a beautiful, deeply felt ache.
Order Big Room here.
Catch Ruby Haunt live:
2027
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The post “Been Stuck in a Forest Lately” — Los Angeles Dreampop Duo Ruby Haunt Share Video for “Big Room” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
