This was the first music video that the Quay Brothers were entirely responsible for, having previously contributed animated sequences to Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' (d. Stephen R. Johnson) in 1986. They had previously been approached by Warren Defever, the Michigan-based founder of the musical project His Name Is Alive (alongside vocalist Karen Oliver and drummer Damian Lang), who wanted to licence extracts from Street of Crocodiles (1986) for use in one of their music videos. The Quays refused permission, but were sufficiently intrigued by Defever's work to agree to shoot a music video for him from scratch.
'Are We Still Married?' was originally released in 1991 as a track on His Name Is Alive's second album Home Is In Your Head. This is very typical of the band's work, and indeed many other releases on the 4AD label, creating a dreamlike ambience through selective distortion of instrumentation and vocals, to the point where it's often hard to make out specific lyrics. Naturally, this approach suited the Quays down to the ground, and they duly ignored the song's textual content in favour of a typically oblique evocation of childhood.
The most immediately striking image is of a young girl, whose head is barely visible, but whose ankles expand and contract in a rhythmic motion. This looks as though it was computer-enhanced, but the effect was in fact entirely mechanical - the Quays' regular technical collaborator Ian Nicholas built a hinge mechanism in the girl's ankles. Around her, a somewhat moth-eaten white rabbit plays a manic solo game of ping-pong.
The video was initially inspired by an image by an anonymous photographer of a girl standing in front of a door holding a paddle. There was also a white doorknob in the picture, which the Quays initially mistook for a ping-ping ball. Although the Quays claimed not to have read Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, there are unmistakable echoes, from the general theme of little girls growing and shrinking before one's eyes, mysterious bottles of unidentified substances and doorknobs that turn into ping-pong balls. From: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1222875/index.html
His Name is Alive are a rather eccentric experimental rock project from Livonia, Michigan, currently based in Detroit. Founded in 1990 by guitarist, composer, and sole constant member Warren Defever, the band is fond of Genre Roulette, having recorded songs ranging from Dream Pop, alternative rock, funk, prog rock, and Baroque Pop to experimental noise and gothic ambient compositions. The band was originally signed to 4AD Records, under whom they released a string of critically acclaimed records throughout The '90s, but were dropped by the label in the early 2000's after failing to meet sales expectations. After this, the band went defunct until 2006, when Defever revived the project with a new lineup. Since then, the band has steadily released new records and shows no signs of slowing down. From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/HisNameIsAlive
DIVERSE AND ECLECTIC FUN FOR YOUR EARS - 60s to 90s rock, prog, psychedelia, folk music, folk rock, world music, experimental, doom metal, strange and creative music videos, deep cuts and more!
Friday, August 25, 2023
His Name Is Alive - Are We Still Married
Thursday, March 30, 2023
His Name is Alive - Can't Go Wrong Without You
The ever-changing
project of multi-instrumentalist/producer Warren Defever, His Name Is
Alive have explored a veritable record store's worth of music during
their decades-spanning career. In the early 1990s, they helped define
the sound of the arty indie label 4AD with the experimental dream pop of
albums such as 1991's Home Is in Your Head and 1993's Mouth by Mouth.
As time went on, their rotating lineup mirrored their shifting sounds.
Defever and company surveyed sunny, Beach Boys-tinged pop on 1996's
Stars on ESP just as deftly as they channeled gospel and R&B on
2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth. A few years later, they
fused their dream pop roots with African and Asian elements on 2007's
Xmmer. His Name Is Alive entered a particularly creative period in the
2010s, combining the ambitious and heavy sounds of prog and metal with
ethereal vocals on the concept albums Tecuciztecatl (2014) and Patterns
of Light (2016). Later in the decade and into the 2020s, Defever
revisited early ambient recordings on collections such as 2019's All the
Mirrors in the House (Early Recordings 1979-1986) and reworked them on
mixtapes including 2020's Ghost Tape EXP. From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/his-name-is-alive-mn0000681402/biography
Starting
from the late 70s, US born/England based duo of identical twins Stephen
and Timothy Quay produced a whole number of stop-motion animations and
their unique style, in turn, influenced a whole number of other
animators. Much of their work is based on the writings of Franz Kafka
and Bruno Schulz, features little to no dialogue, and relies heavily on
musical scores/soundtracks. Their connection with musical world became
more pronounced as they directed music videos for His Name Is Alive,
Michael Penn and 16 Horsepower. Some incorrectly assume that they are
responsible for creating videos for the band Tool (undoubtedly, very
similar in style to Quay’s work, but created mostly by the band’s
guitarist Adam Jones).
The two videos that the Brothers Quay directed
for His Name Is Alive are “Can’t Go Wrong Without You” and “Are We
Still Married.” From: https://ihrtn.net/brothers-quay-his-name-is-alive/
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