One half of Staffordshire electro duo epic45 and co-operator of the imprint, Wayside and Woodland Recordings; Robert Glover returns with the visual narrative debut for "Everyone" off his Field Harmonics album, Walls. Gathering together friends around the West Midlands town of Wolverhampton, a disco-dance awakened dream-world dystopia emerges from the song's brightest key burst arrangements to trade mundanity for a Kafka rendering of UK suburbia scarier than whichever Dr. Who serial you happen to be into right now.
A morning spent sleeping in on the couch rises to a groggy consciousness between shot cuts to flashing pub hall lights, choreographed dancing dames as an unexpected journey walk through life and the day commences. Actress Renata Walton enjoys her morning coffee, takes her dog for a stroll while a mysterious cloaked individual lurks around like a guide or wandering spirit. Sorting through apparel, Renata makes her way to the dance party where Rob and revelers await. But upon arrival, the dance hall is empty, the rugs have already been cut, the flashing lights have ceased, and only Renata remains with her companion that resembles the chess opponent ripped from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. The video plays 'night before' memories against the needs of the day and all those in between things and places people go while waiting to get all done up and dressed up for the night.
Rob Glover talked with us further about adapting his piece of dance pop progeny into a day in the life kind of story, complete with a looming mystery man, dancing gals, dance moves, flashing lights, with the urban world all around, everywhere, and involving "Everyone".
"The idea for the video developed over a number of weeks, after initial discussions with my partner, who produced the video) and close friend Mark, who took on the directorial role. With the track 'Everyone' we knew from an early stage that we wanted to include a choreographed dance sequence,disco scene and lip-synched vocal performance, but also maintain a 'working mens' club' or a 'pub function room' feel to the location. Nothing too clean or stylized—something a little more rough around the edges and also something quintessentially English. The actual location we used in the end for the party scene was somewhere I had DJ'd during the previous Christmas holiday for a friend's work party, so it had been in the back of mind as a location for a few months."
"The narrative idea of following the day-in-the-life of a girl, and how the party scenes would tie together with this had also been a constant from the start but I struggled for a couple of weeks to come up with another element that would add another level of interest or intrigue without over-complicating the video. After thinking closely about the lyrics of the track during a walk to work one morning, it clicked that I wanted to include a ghostly, shadowy figure that the girl would never see—but would be omnipresent in the background of her waking moments. I have always been a fan of creepy 70s British TV, and became really excited about adding this element of suburban horror to the narrative."
"The 'end reveal' was something we were really conscious we had to get right, and there were lots of discussions about how best to achieve that. The idea of someone rushing to get somewhere and then missing the event was something that had particular resonance with me. The lyrics of my first single 'Happenstance' refer to a distressing recurring dream I had during the start of 2012. The dream involved me running across a field, with that treadmill like sensation of not covering any ground, desperately trying to get to a funeral – but never arriving in time. I really wanted to get that idea across, and use it as a device to add to the tension of the video and to also turn it on its head, and hopefully cause a real disorientating effect on the viewer."
"We were able to assemble to great crew for the shoot which took place over two days in April, in and around the Chapel Ash and Heath Town areas of Wolverhampton. We had no real budget for this video outside of hiring the location and flying over the Director of Photography from Ireland and I relied massively on the support of my talented and creatively driven close friends, the dancers and everyone who gave up their Saturday afternoon to be extras in the party scene. Despite the sleepless nights leading up to the shoot, the video was a lot of fun to put together. Huge thanks to everyone involved."
The Field Harmonics album Walls is available now from Wayside and Woodland Recordings.
