Further to our earlier post abck in September Texan band Okkervil River have revealed the second video to album standout track ‘Your Past Life As A Blast’ ahead of their UK tour starting this week. Full details on the tour, which is currently in Europe with support from A Classic Education is below.
How do you capture a memory? This is the main question director Isaac Ravishankara attempts to answer with his new video for Okkervil River’s ‘Your Past Life as a Blast.’ He explains, “My initial inspiration came from some of William Faulkner’s novels, especially ‘The Sound and the Fury’, where the same story is told from four unique perspectives. Also, I had been reading a lot about how the brain processes time, and also thinking a lot about meaning in juxtaposed images.”
The narrative is straightforward: a boy and a girl sneak away to a lake, jump in the water, swim as far as they can, and then lead the rest of their lives. The concept Ravishankara created out of this storyline results in an expressionistic piece that illustrates the subjective perspective of two memories of the same event. Over the course of months the video changed & grew through the editing process eventually bringing to the fore an abstract quality that mimics actual memory.
The small crew filmed with actors Benedict Mazurek and Margaret Miller upstate in New Paltz, NY. “We were out in the woods for 2 days and the night in-between,” says Ravishankara, “The woods were filled with nature, which often was literally on top of us. Mostly snakes. Ben caught one, actually, on Day 1. But the hardest part of the shoot, by far, were all of the water scenes. We spent hours in the lake and it was awfully cold. By the end of the day, Ben and Margaret and I were so cold, our shivers had turned to full-on uncontrollable shaking, which Kevin (Haden, DP) thankfully captured. That last shot in the video is my favorite shot I have in anything I’ve ever made.” He adds, “I hope you enjoy the video, and I hope it moves you, even if just a little bit.”
2011 has been an amazing year for Okkervil River with the release of their critically acclaimed latest full length, ‘I Am Very Far’. The band performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with David Letterman to celebrate the release. Will Sheff also helmed the Roky Erickson record ‘True Love Cast Out All Evil’, for which his album notes received a GRAMMY nomination this year. The band are on tour in Europe through the end of November, hot off of a stellar performance at Fun Fun Fun Fest earlier this month. Dates are listed below.
TOUR DATES with support from A Classic Education:
11/14/11 Munich, DE – Backstage
11/15/11 Cologne, DE – Luxor
11/16/11 Paris, FR – Cafe de la Danse
11/18/11 Dublin, IE – The Button Factory
11/19/11 Glasgow, UK – Oran Mor
11/20/11 Manchester, UK – Sound Control
11/21/11 Bristol, UK – Trinity
11/22/11 London, UK – Koko
Get tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/131369
11/24/11 Haarlem, NL – Patronaat
11/25/11 Brussels, BE – Botanique Orangerie (Autumn Falls Festival)
11/26/11 Utrecht, NL – Tivoli (Le Guess Who? Festival)