New music video for fast moving single “Distance” by Emily King (which recently premiered on Noisey) is not at all what I expected from the R&B soul songstress, and to me that is only further proof how unique that she’s doing really is. A more traditional music video would have been black and white, with melancholy eyes shrouded in sweeping eyeliner but from the second it begins what we see is a neatly compartmentalized explosion of color. Each frame shows an entirely different piece of the entire portrait and the story is told through a half-shown image of her face simply singing. Directed by the innovative Paul Jung, the video is full of what I saw as pop-art esque visuals that create that distance through vibrant snap snots of what we would consider every day activities.
Instead of an extended image of her chronicling the track, a series of poignant objects, a type-writer, a cheerful box of cereal, creamy colored paint splashing over a rose and lit matches that later light it on fire, with an overall emphasis on hands. Hands grazing guitar strings, typewriter keys and a piano melody, holding each other and letting go to make whoever’s heart this video touches ultimately grow fonder. The difference between shallower pop art and what Jung has done here is the natural and straightforward approach of the single itself, which flows through the intriguing frames and shows King for what she is, an organic and soulful diva for modern times.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DbeYbcZAJE[/youtube]
