Singing Album Art: Mayokero

Director Vania Heymann Brings the Stars of Iconic Album Covers to Life ‘Sometimes when the artist’s portrait is on the [album] cover,’ director Vania Heymann tells us, ‘I’ll stare at it, once in a while, feeling that if I stare at it for just enough time, the artist’s face on the album would sing along.’ Weird as the habit may seem, it was from this that the fantastic video concept for Roy Kafri’s Mayokero, was born. With an expert command of direction and editing, music artists of the past such as Madonna and Bowie, are resurrected; wailing and beat boxing along to the track.

‘I liked the fact that there are no lyrics to the song, that way I’m not putting words in people’s mouths.’

The video is about how decisions seem different as perspectives shift, and is inspired by memories of his parents throwing away their ‘magnificent’ vinyl collection when he was in his mid—teens, as well as memories of spending all of his bar mitzvah money on a Minidisk. With a deep appreciation of artwork on album covers, Vania sees the video as privileged crossing of two ways to visualise an artist’s music: music videos and album covers.