After delivering the bold and enigmatic sophomore single ‘Velvet Ditch’ from his forthcoming debut album ‘Glitra’ earlier in June, guitar-pop artist and producer Brijs now returns to unveil the bold and cinematic video for his latest release.
Channeling that same pop-leaning psych-rock aesthetic in visual terms, the video for ‘Velvet Ditch’ sees him collaborate with brothers Andy and David Renton. Andy, an ex-Atlantic records designer and visual artist who has worked on projects for the likes of Ed Sheeran, Marina and Matt Maltese, and David, who is an animator and previously worked with Brijs on the video for his cover of Jai Paul’s ‘Jasmine’, have come together to create this truly technicolour spectacle of vivid imagery and chaotic symbolism that firmly represents the feeling of this new offering.
Speaking about the new video, Brijs said, “Like many of us independent artists, I was on a budget. I got inventive and asked a lot of favours. I put up a photography backdrop in my studio, sourced props from charity shops and ebay, borrowed a decent camera, and pulled in friends to help me put it together. I had David working on the animation of the pit of teeth and lyrics whilst Andy and I were in the studio filming it with my drummer Luke as our starring talent.
“‘Velvet Ditch’ is about being trapped in comfort and so I boiled this idea down to a simplistic brief of creating claustrophobia with fabrics. I found various bits and pieces around town but ended up almost exclusively using a red spandex table cloth I’d bought from eBay. We stretched it over our faces, our hands, we were inside it at one point… We lost it a little bit, but I think that was necessary.
The video also ties in visual hooks from his forthcoming album ‘Glitra’. The white doll’s house, sunflower and sunflower seeds alluding to the overarching narrative behind the album which follows the artists decision to leave London for an idyllic chapter spent in a near derelict mansion in his rural hometown with a newly formed friendship group.
The album follows the artist’s decision to quit his job and leave London, chasing a new perspective. The move began a chapter spent living as a property guardian in a dilapidated mansion in his rural hometown with a new group of friends. That time, and the resulting album, were characterised by a mood of pursuit.
“Our mid-twenties were a second coming of age. You do a lot of growing in your teens but something bigger happens in your twenties. It’s when we first become truly independent. We spent that time chasing what it meant to be ourselves outside of our upbringing.”
‘GLITRA’
“Framing life in squares, we’re tied up in triangles…
We see the same pictures, we paint them in circles”
Inspired by a quip about the Bloomsbury arts collective, the final lyric of Glitra’s closing track frames the structure of Brijs’ debut album: four tracks about time and place, three on love and the title track about friendship.
Cecilian
Velvet Ditch
Stay Up Stephanie
River Swimming
Shame
Comb
Mol y Sol
Glitra
Glitra, old norse for ‘glittered’, was supposedly used by the norsemen to describe the flickering reflection of sunlight on the horizon at sea. Brijs uses this image as metaphor for the underlying theme of pursuit that runs throughout the album.
“Friendship, joy, trust, intimacy, understanding, identity are all like continually shifting points on the horizon – they are boundless in nature and therefore endlessly pursuable. That’s how I see that period of time… A mismatch gang in a crumbling old vessel, travelling towards our personal unknowns and at the same time, towards each other.”
The album was produced by Rob Brinkmann, long serving engineer of RAK Studios (Drake, Royal Blood, Pixies, Clean Bandit & Mumford and Sons) and mixed and mastered at Abbey Road by Oli Morgan (Bastille, Princess Nokia). The album also includes two collaborations with songwriter Ed Nash of Bombay Bicycle Club.
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