In an increasingly fast-paced world, it’s great to take a step back sometimes and to just take it slow. Slow can be comforting and relaxing, but it can also have a great beauty and depth to it. This is especially true when it comes to slowcore. Like the other “core” genres, slowcore is often full of lyrical gems and deep poetic thoughts. While it might not be the most well-known genre, bands like Joyer, the moniker of the brother duo Nick and Shane Sullivan, showcases the great melancholy and drama of slowcore to the world.
The brothers started of in film and they now use their inspiration and influences by various film makers for their music and videos. This is especially clear in their new video for “Lucky.” The song is included on their most recent album Perfect Gray which was released last month. In their lyrics, Joyer often express their feelings about different struggles, enviormental or internal, but yet they seem to also find a silver-lining or just keep on hoping for something better someday, somehow.
“I came up with the music video idea because I’ve been wanting to do some kind of video with Jake Miller, the star and frequent live member of Joyer, for a while. We’ve known him a long time and he’s great at doing these weird and awkward types of characters so the video was really based around me thinking, ‘What can I have this guy do?’. To me the song feels like it has this feeling of hypnotic repetitive motion to it and I wanted to display that visually, so I pictured someone running at some point in the music video, and the concept of training and exercise came from there. I was a little worried it would come off too goofy so I shot it all on VHS to try to give it some grit and tow the line between funny and unsettling,” Nick says about the video for “Lucky.”
Their song “Lucky” is no exception from the duo’s sophisticated and empathic songwriting skills. Matched with their new video, the song is taken to a whole new level of emotions. Contrary from what you might think from reading the title, the maincharacter of the video seems everything else but lucky, quite the opposite actually. The whole video is shot in a ‘90s homemovie-like aesthetic. Maybe it is especially the way the video is filmed that makes the viewer maybe a little uncomfortable, there is just something unsettling about watching a grown man getting pumped up in front of a lonely mirror and then beaten up while on a run. Now, given all these emotions you might feel while watching, it’s just impossible to actually stop watching. It is a capitative short insight on someone’s life. And while the viewer is glued to the screen following the poor protagonist, they might feel uneasy, but also so much empathy and pure emotions.
Combining the video with the song, the atmosphere is on point. It’s a melancholic state, but it’s also a security blanket that feels so comfortable, you don’t mind staying in this exact position for a little longer and just take in the world around you.
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