WATCH: Unknown Mortal Orchestra skew reality in new 'That Life' video

Unknown Mortal Orchestra have released the music video for their second single 'That Life' in collaboration with 'The Muppets' puppeteer Laura Manns.

The New Zealand group, led by Ruban Nielson, released original music for the first time since 2018 in June with their track 'Weekend Run'. Seecond single 'That Life' is an ice-cool summer tune that leans into the psychedelic rock band's funkier side.

The playful rhythm and Nielson's soaring falsetto vocals are subverted in the video, which depicts a blue puppet character dancing to the song at a poolside. Nielson's premise for the clip was inspired by Bosch's Early Netherlandish renaissance triptych 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'.

“In the painting there is a mixture of crazy stuff going on, representing heaven, earth, and hell,” Nielson said in a statement about the creation of the new song. “When I was writing this song, ‘That Life’, I was imagining the same kind of 'Where’s Wally' of contrasting scenes and multiple characters all engaged in that same perverse mixture of luxury, reverie, damnation, in the landscape of America. Somewhere on holiday under a vengeful sun.”

As the video plays out, the puppet oscillates between sanity and insanity; he drops his drink glass, finds himself in a desert, and then abducted by aliens. Throughout the video, the camera zooms out to reveal each of the locations are false sets, and the increasingly visible puppeteers cleverly skew the sense of reality in the video.

The video ends with the character in a sleepless stupor, dressed only in his underwear with his mouth drooling and forehead sweating, continuing to dance to the steady beat.

The tightly knit video has been well-received thus far with commenters noting that Nielson knows how to keep things fresh.

Watch the 'That Life' music video below.