I think I know how that young woman feels in Plaid‘s new video for “Do Matter“. Haven’t told too many people this for fear of being looked at all cross-eyed, but one night, walking home from dinner in Seattle, my buddy and I looked up in the sky over the city to see a series of strange flying objects. I know, I know, crazy! But, that’s exactly what we thought as we looked at each other in absolute disbelief.
The year was 2000, and we’d recently moved to the city from Colorado. It was a clear May night–call it early evening–but if you know the Pacific Northwest at that time of the year, the sun sets pretty late so there was still a good amount of light in the sky. We were heading home and had just walked thru a park in the middle of downtown when, for lack of a better phrase, a “strange urge” took our attention to a group of translucent and spherical objects flying over the buildings in a northerly direction.
Now, this is gonna sound all Twin Peaks, but I swear it was a giant fir tree waving in the wind that stopped us dead in our tracks before we looked up to see those objects flying in a tight formation. They eventually fanned out into a V-shape, almost like a flock of migrating geese, except these objects were seen as clear spheres as they continued north at a rapid pace.
Blown away, I don’t think either of us knew quite what to say about what we’d seen. My buddy ended up moving away shortly after that, and we’ve never really talked about that night since. But today, watching the expression on the face of actress Claire Louge as she encounters this video’s unidentified flying objects, really brought these memories flooding back. Go ahead, call me crazy, but maybe one night you’ll look up into the sky to see something you’ve never seen before!
“Do Matter” was directed by Christopher Arcella and it features animations he created in the open source, 3D imaging program Blender. Discussing the video, he explains:
“Four elements form the foundation of this video: first and foremost is Plaid’s cinematic track, which builds a long dramatic crescendo that serves as a blueprint for the narrative. The second is the album and logo art by Designers Republic which inspires the sharp-angled, modular flying objects. Third is the quiet, beautiful Arizona landscape, and fourth is actress Claire Louge’s performance which connects viewers to the mysterious events taking place in the sky.”
You can find this track on Plaid’s upcoming LP The Digging Remedy, due out June 10th via Warp Records.
