No fronting: we fell instantly, pathetically in love with Bing & Ruth last year.
David Moore’s Brooklyn-based instrumental ensemble released their first album, City Lake, in a far-too-limited edition back in 2010, but after the success of last year’s Tomorrow Was The Golden Age they’ve wisely decided to give it a proper reissue via their new label home RVNG Intl.
Ahead of its release on November 13, Bing & Ruth have unveiled a most mysterious video for ‘Broad Channel’, one of the album’s most serene and pensive pieces, more of a piece with the soft drones of Tomorrow Was The Golden Age. Directed by Alex Priestley, the video was shot in his native South Wales and follows an elderly gentleman making his way through glorious countryside to an eerie beachfront, where he finds a cluster of featureless human figures – recalling Antony Gormley’s beach sculptures in Crosby, England – who seem to symbolise a portal to another realm.
Revisiting City Lake for the reissue is like “visiting a house I used to live in,” Moore told FACT in an email. “All the memories come back but I’m seeing it through the eyes of someone who doesn’t live there anymore.”
Priestley’s take on ‘Broad Channel’ was surprise to Moore, but he would have felt the same about any visual take on his music: “It’s always been important for me not to define the music in any other way than the actual sound you’re hearing. I think what he did with the song is brilliant and really captures that spirit of making a specific thing that leaving enough room for everyone to find their own way in.”
For the director, the video was an attempt to capture the “majestic spaciousness” of the track, “which I felt would be complemented in the video by having this human figure moving through these wide-open, epic spaces,” explained Priestley. “There’s also a kind of eerie loneliness to the track, especially towards the end, which is where the idea for the beach scene came in.”
Quizzed on the mysterious figures on the beach, he adds that the original concept “involved a lot of helium balloons tied to people’s heads of pieces of string, but the plan had to be abandoned the day before filming due to adverse weather conditions. What those balloons might have represented I’ll leave to you to decide.”
