It may be too soon to call it but today art pop collective Hundred Waters released a music video for what may arguably be my favorite track on their enthralling sophomore record and album of the year contender The Moon Rang Like A Bell.
Directed by BANGS, the video takes a decidedly direct and minimalistic approach towards the track’s multitudinous layers. Beginning with an closeup of vocalist Nicole Miglis as she sings the tracks’ stuttering opening while the camera subtly follows the incomplete non-delivery with slow clean jerks, BANGS quickly establishes a dreamy quality before any of the action truly begins. While Miglis wanders around a beautiful home in the midst of destruction, there’s both an unshakeable melancholy and an unsettling resilience in her mere presence. As pieces of debris rain down just right of her, and lights flicker, Miglis sits unshaken and dare I say comfortable.
BANGS’ vision is quietly surrealist to the point that the video’s plot remains for the most part indiscernible. Is it all a dream? And while Miglis stalks the grounds like a ghost, there’s a twist every so often that turns that theory on its head. Whether its the demolition crew’s relative inattention to her subverted by a shot of her standing hand in hand with one or their own dreamlike qualities, nothing is quite what it seems and that makes the video all the more intriguing.
