With a name like darkDARK, you wouldn’t expect the kind of music that the duo of Chris James and Genevieve Vincent creates to be quite so cinematic and uplifting. Their latest single “Save It” does just that and today we’re premiering the brilliantly colorful video for the song, perfect for throwing a mini-dance party at home in isolation. The song is from the pair’s new EP We forget when we’re apart, which is the follow up to their well-received debut EP Heathered.
Lyrically “Save It” is quite simple, allowing the lush instrumentation to take the lead, falling into place as another instrument in the rich symphony that James and Vincent create together. It opens with the line “Maybe you can go to sleep / I’ll stay up all night and I’ll drive / Looking out the window now / You think you see something in the night,” before transitioning to the chorus, which features Vincent breathlessly singing “I’ll save it” over and over.
“Inspired by nights skating the line between elation and danger, ‘Save It’ is about getting high off an experience, existing in the present, and saving that moment,” said the band about the song. “We sometimes take the present for granted without being self-aware. In this song we are living in the presentness from a memory.”
The video was directed by Will Wernick and animated by VFX artist Jordan Rundle and takes in the splendors of the natural world, literally from a birds-eye view. The colors and openness of the video are a perfect companion to the thoughful-yet-danceable songs of “Save It.”
“We’ve always envisioned this song as taking place in the deep, haunting woods of the Pacific Northwest,” said the band. “In the video we wanted to create a character that could embody the idea of youthful abandon and the passage of time. We collaborated on a concept with director Will Wernick and decided on a bird which then 3D animator/ VFX artist Jordan Rundle brought to life. The bird lives in two separate worlds at the same time. In the beginning of the video: The bright sun of day and foggy dark of the evening. As it continues: The slow meandering path of the real world, and the hyper fast and intentional path of its own reality. While the bird’s flight might seem haphazard from the outside, through its eyes we see that it has direction.”
“Our perspective literally opens up as we enter the bird’s view, showing us the grand size of the world it sees,” said Wernick. “As it flies, it loses more and more of itself until it can no longer keep going. Just like we do as we go about our lives and lose our innocence. But before the end it manages to re-energize itself and continue.”
While darkDARK are only just getting started as a duo, individually James and Vincent are veterans in the world of music. James is known for his composing, mixing and sound design work for companies like Audi, Levi’s and Nike. Vincent meanwhile is a classically trained composer and producer and has worked on films such as The Broken Heart Gallery, Moving Art and Now Is The Time.
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