Vancouver Synth-pop quartet Blonde Diamond has shared the surrealistic music video for their new single “Strange Times” – now streaming on all DSPs. The track comes from their upcoming debut album, due out later this year. Judging by the single, we’ll be looking forward to the full-length. Watch “Strange Times” now!
Video Still by Brandon Fletcher
Stream the track here: https://blondediamond.lnk.to/StrangeTimes
Speaking on the music video, Alexis Young wrote:
“Lyrically, the song ‘Strange Times’ takes place in a fantastical parallel universe, so it only made sense that the video should represent that. We chose to use a bright and dreamy palette to provide a luxurious backdrop for our characters to obliviously dance away on. As it becomes clear through elements of foreshadowing that there is a clear impending doom, we ignore the signs and carry on. In the background as we see chaos and destruction unfold, we try to keep the dream alive until we become swallowed and it reveals that the universe goes on without us, unaffected. Strange times indeed.”
Director Brandon William Fletcher continued:
“The video itself was a trip, the story sort of sprang into existence of its own accord. I spent a month in pre-pro building visuals and scenes (about 70% of which wouldn’t even make it into the video) before a single image was even shot. Once we completed production there was a bunch of back-and-forth with the band, this really collaborative atmosphere of world-building to uncover our story.
At the heart of it for me, I think, was the myth of Icarus (and indeed the current state of the world as it stands); humanity’s hubris taking us to the brink and this cognitive dissonance where we’re unable or unwilling to see the seriousness of our situation so we just keep dancing. All presented in this glossy, magazine format, where each image is vying for your attention more than the previous, conveniently distracting you from reality.
Additional inspiration came from artists like Hiroshi Nagai, Eizin Suzuki, and Hiroshi Takahara who really seemed to define the look of the Japanese ‘city pop’ genre, and architect Luis Barragán.”
