Following the announcement of their new project BRONSON, GRAMMY-nominated duo Harrison Mills & Clayton Knight (of ODESZA) and ARIA-platinum selling Australian producer Tom Stell (aka Golden Features) unveil the gripping music video for their first single “Heart Attack (ft. lau.ra)”. Make your own intreptations of the music video then read what the creators have to say.
Following the journey of a woman who battles against dark forces, emboldened by the desire to reach a brighter end, she ultimately discovers that the light she was seeking was harbored within – an uplifting message of self-reliance central to the debut BRONSON album. Directed by award-winning Hungarian filmmaker Balázs Simon and produced by London-based company Blinkink, the cinematic animation paints a moving picture of reaching respite in difficult times.
“Heart Attack” was created through a unique process combining 3D animation, live action motion capture, simulated elements and hand drawn textures. The production company Blinkink boasts a portfolio that includes work for Gorillaz, Jon Hopkins, Tame Impala, Elton John, and QTip. Director Balázs Simon also has a slate of impressive work with Leifur James and Nils Frahm to name a few. His visual style blurs the line between technology and the nature of real life, telling stories through an abstract lens.
On the making of the video, Simon says: “As we couldn’t assemble a big team together due to lockdown, we needed a less conventional way of doing this, where all departments had to work separately – without really seeing the whole picture! We had to rely on our imaginations. We went out to the empty streets of Budapest and shot camera moves without any subject, then we rehearsed movements in a park, did some motion capture, and from there we took the stay-at-home ordinances to heart – locking ourselves in for a couple of weeks and assembling all the collected data into this video. It was an intensive experience with an amazing team of talented friends, and it made our days much more bearable!”
The video opens in a desolate, grayscale urban environment framed by abandoned streets and angular buildings, modeled after the currently empty landscape of Budapest. A woman emerges from the shadows, clad in garments top to bottom, shielding her from the harsh elements as the city is engulfed by a forceful windstorm. Nearby, other cloaked figures hide for cover in the dimly lit alleys and corners. In the eye of the turbulent winds, a surging ray of light emanates. The hero is drawn towards the brilliance, mesmerized, as if pulled by an invisible force; she struggles onward, journeying to the beam. Determined amidst the harrowing elements, she continues on, unwavering in her plight. Gradually, her garments are torn from her body, as if freed by the wind, revealing reflections of gold underneath. The viewer follows her struggles, yet finally, she rises in triumph, as if to welcome the gales; with her bare skin completely exposed and illuminated, she seemingly unearths the light within herself, her strength inspiring the others to emerge and embrace the light, too.
Nearly three years in the making, BRONSON formed through the personal connection that Mills and Knight shared with Stell. Born out of a mutual admiration and a calling to pursue new creative frontiers outside of their respective projects, they created a digital record box of shared sounds sent across time zones and continents through Dropbox files and FaceTime calls. The product of those collective efforts culminated in 2018 when the trio spent a week in the remote reaches of Berry, Australia, recording what would later become the first BRONSON album.
On “Heart Attack”, BRONSON reflects: “It was the first vocal track we worked on for the record. It was one of those ideas that came together really quickly and felt very natural while writing with lau.ra. Ultimately, it was a confluence between the two distinctive sounds of ODESZA and Golden Features. It served as a turning point in the writing process of the album and an inspiration for the other vocal tracks to come.”
BRONSON’s self-titled debut album arrives July 17 via Foreign Family Collective and Ninja Tune. It is available now to pre-order and pre-save digitally. Pre-order the physical LP at the official BRONSON store.
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