Last year, Irish Director and Photographer Ellius Grace delivered a superb video for Irish folk singer Junior Brother, mixing absurdity and self-loathing to bring to life This is My Body. Today, Junior Brother revealed a new video, this one for his epic 19-and-a-half-minute ‘Junior Brother’s Favourite‘, which is digitally released today and available to Pre-Order on 10″ Vinyl now (Out June 10th) – you can find the order link here.
The accompanying video is no less epic in its presentation. Folkloric and driven with a very tangible fear throughout, especially prevalent in the figure of ‘the boy’ played by Fiachra Corkery, who is faced by a creature, played by Manus Halligan, whose motives are unclear…or is he a figment of his imagination. The ragged mask partly obscures his face, worming its way into your deepest fears.
Grace’s Direction is potent, the oblique angles unnerving, and Aidan Gault’s cinematography inventive, capturing elements of decay in the scenes perfectly. In contrast, Leandro Arouca’s colour grading of those scenes enhances the dreamlike, timeless and gritty tension. I think I may have said the same about the last video, but this is one of the best music videos I’ve seen in a long time, capturing the frenzy and fear of Junior Brother:
“This song was written on the day I moved back to Dublin after the first 3 months of the 2020 lockdown spent at home in Co. Kerry. After that long-feeling period of uncertainty and writers’ block at home, I sat to try once more to write something.
As soon as I did, the flow returned in a rush of focus never before felt – the atmospheres of home so crucial to my work returned again only upon my leaving. Everything which silently built up during the previous few months was suddenly spit up and staked to the front of my subconscious in a dizzying frenzy.
Uncharged images from the months of nothingness now beckoned meaning, and meanings more images, until field was followed by meadow, then beach, then sea, until everything reached the sky, and fear became my favourite, and the darkness was chiseled to try to look like love.”
Interspersed throughout the video are glimpses of Junior Brother performing the song. Out of view, he is accompanied by his new band, recorded by John “Spud” Murphy for the first time on record. While his music has that off-kilter feel, it’s so beautifully raw and gritty that it stays with you long after the end; this is the real deal.
Junior Brother is on tour now with a full band run-through the UK in April (see below), where the new single plus many more will be performed in full by the Junior Brother Band. More band dates are to be announced very soon.
UK Shows
Apr 21 – The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, UK
Apr 23 – The Crescent, York, UK
Apr 24 – The Folklore Rooms, Brighton, UK
Apr 25 – The Hare & Hounds Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Apr 26 – Le Pub, Newport, UK
Apr 28 – Moth Club, London, UK
Website: https://www.juniorbrother.com/