The New Pornographers have released a new music video for their song, “Champions of Red Wine,” which is a song from the band’s most recent Matador Records album, Brill Bruisers.
Their latest video opens with a shot of the abdomen of a woman wearing a cream colored long sleeved dress, and her high heels are clicking audibly as she’s walking around a low-lit room. She sits down at a mirror to reapply her lipstick, and off to the side viewers can see an older man sitting nearby. After a jump cut, it is revealed that the man is actually sitting on the other side of a glass window that is seemingly mirrored on the woman’s side. Before the opening credits, the man says “hey” to her and she responds in Spanish (“hola”.)
Then, as the upbeat music starts, the video backtracks to show how each character found his and her, respective, ways into that viewing room. The man is shown in a bar, drinking and taking pleasure in watching another woman dancing suggestively, and it appears that the girl grew up in the island nation of Cuba. Once again, another jump cut takes readers between the flashbacks and the present, and it is revealed in subtitled text that the man is “prehistoric.”
During the flashback sequences of the man seeing the Cuban woman in a bar, before he is removed for brawling, feature the lyrics, “the steps I take to get back to you.” Considering the two meet again, these lyrics are particularly fitting.
Where does the inspiration for the video come from?
Scott Cudmore directed the music video for The New Pornographers’ song “Champions of Red Wine.” And, he had previously worked with the band on a video that accompanied their song “Dancehall Domine.” This latest music video for “Champions of Red Wine” was produced with the financial assistance of MuchFACT, which is a division of Bell Media Inc.
In a press release, director Cudmore explained that the inspiration for the video came from a town in Texas. He said, “There’s a debt to the Paris, Texas locale of peep shows here and that was sort of the jumping off point for the video. I had this idea of a rambling, drunk loner in a foreign environment, somebody who can’t really connect to anything except for on a very superficial level.”
How do their stories end?
Check it out, below.
Lastly, on a related note, be sure to check out the band’s summer tour dates, here.