This Mesmerising Music Video Toys With Fluidity, Strength And Empowerment When Yalta Club approached Parisian creative studio, Akarte, to create the music video for, Exile, the result was always going to powerful. The indie-pop sextet entrusted the latest release from their MIDAS EP into the hands of founders Valentin Abad, Julien Dhivert and Sébastien Riveron and the result is decadent yet raw. With a tipped hat to the golden touch of Midas, in relation to the EP’s title, the instrumental nature of the song dictates the slow, mesmerizing rhythm of the movement. “We wanted to create beautiful pictures around the portrait, the money and borders”, the men of many of many talents explained to us during our hat, “we wanted to break in an abstract, artistic vision – to separate still life and the character, like two detached constructions”. Exile dips and dances, it lulls us into momentary security with it’s soft guitars before exploding into a bold, sensory experience. The gold liquid drips, runs in rivulets over the body of the head, eyelids and fingertips of the anonymous character. All encompassing and almost claustrophobic, he is encased by the luxurious liquid and creates a contrasting feeling: we oscillate between feeling he is trapped and feeling he is free, lathering himself in the liquid, standing strong and glaring. Everything seems to be crashing and breaking around him, yet though he is never seems to be in the same vicinity as the destruction, his movements are intertwined with them. His thrusting fists or swaying head seem to be the cause of the destruction – the light, fluid liquid in great contrast to the hard, industrial nature of everything surrounding it. We caught up with the Akarte founders to find out more about this collaboration. The Plus: How did the collaboration come about? Valentin Abad, Julien Dhivert & Sebastien Riveron: Yalta Club contacted us because they appreciate the work we did for musicians like Benjamin Clementine, Aaron, and Qdrpd. They wanted to do a cover and a music video in the same way, as we like to think… They give us all the freedom we wanted. It is a good starting point to work well. Besides, they are very nice and friendly. It’s great fun to work with Yalta Club. Before the music video, we shot the cover, and we realized a series of portraits of all the members of the group so Yalta Club has quite a lot of pictures for press and so each member can feel attached to the principle of the cover. TP: How do the lyrics and visuals intertwine? VA, JD & SR: We have always a desire not to illustrate the texts. Its important for us to have a distance between, texts and images with abstract symbols, through a staging and a free and sensitive editing the different tones. This is music that is inspiring, more than substance. TP: How long did the video take to film and what equipment was used? VA, JD & SR: We shot this video in one day with a very small team. We had a 4k camera Phantom and many objects to break and a promising young actor (Phoenix Brossard, brother of a member of the group). TP: Sum up the video in 3 words VA, JD & SR: Break the wall TP: Talk us though the colour aesthetic? Particularly, the black and gold – why these choices? VA, JD & SR: Green become dark blue relative to the cover. But we wanted to have beautiful colors in the studio and talk about civilisations. We chose our colors, like a painting. TP: How does art enhance music, or music enhance art? How do you think the two are linked? VA, JD & SR: We always thought that music was visual and had to be watched. Music is very important in the movies we like. We work all day in music. We love all styles, but we prefer things that are not on the radio. A track can be more powerful with a visual way. But we don’t watch a lot music videos, we prefer to discover musicians or new tracks on movies… More interesting and less pop song. TP: What is the liquid dripping over the model in the video? VA, JD & SR: We would have gold, but it was too expensive and hot, then, it was painting… TP: What’s next? VA, JD & SR: We’ll shoot the next clip Yalta Club in a different universe but in continuity with “Exile,” and we just finished the shooting of our own clip from one of our music “Somewhere” to the release of our album “Blck Rck”. The only thing we can say is that there will also travel far and pretty. Stay tuned, it will be a great.
