Songfacts®:

• "A Tear In Space (Airlock)" finds Glass Animals weaving their signature retro-futuristic soundscapes with a lyrical exploration that's equal parts intoxicating and unsettling.
• The lyrics delve into the dark side of love's gravitational pull. Frontman Dave Bayley, who wrote and produced the song, describes it as a meditation on the blurred lines between pleasure and pain in a suffocatingly intense relationship.
  
  "A 'Tear in Space (Airlock)' explores a love that is all consuming, forcing you to bend and stretch yourself around the other person to the point where you lose yourself," explained Bayley. "Stretched so thin, squashed so small, you are almost invisible."
• The song's title hints at this sense of isolation. The "airlock" becomes a metaphor for a one-way journey into a love that's as vast and unknowable as space itself. The album itself plays with themes of scale, contrasting the smallness of a single teardrop with the immensity of the cosmos.
  
  "The universe may make us feel overwhelmingly small, but we have this human connection that is far vaster and more mysterious," said Bayley.
• The music video for "A Tear In Space (Airlock)" mirrors the song's intense exploration of love. Directed by the duo of Taylor Fauntleroy and Drew Kirsch, the video uses contrasting elements – roses, a set dinner table, flickering candles, and a sharp suit – to represent the allure and tenderness of love. However, these symbols are juxtaposed with a "big cold scientific machine made of blades" that embodies the crushing and isolating nature of this suffocating relationship.
  
  "The blades get faster as you get closer. It peels the layers off you until there are none left, and then it stretches you and pulls you apart until you're obliterated," said Bayley.
  
  The video uses this imagery to depict the loss of self that can occur in such an all-consuming dynamic.
  
  Fauntleroy and Kirsch elaborated on the video's concept: "This concept really began with Dave's idea to get himself in a wind tunnel and throw things at him, which sounded great until we realized we might kill him and/or get sued. That led to us to really work to visualize the emotional experience of A Tear in Space."
  
  They achieved this through the use of "abstract techniques" that capture the feeling of being pulled and pushed away, losing your sense of self in the process. Despite the shift in approach, they did manage to fulfill a bit of the original idea: "We did also get to throw some things at Dave," they added with a laugh, "which was a highlight."
  
  Taylor Fauntleroy's other video credits include Surfaces' "Sunday Best" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Beach House." Drew Kirsch has directed several of Taylor Swift's videos, including those for "You Need To Calm Down" and "Lover."