We all know Lolita virtually. She's the girl in the American Apparel ad, make-up free with a blank stare in the faux schoolgirl skirt and stockings. She's the Hentai cartoon with a babydoll face, wide blue eyes and flawless, hairless body who does those dirty things that men dream of. She's made for a nice audience but is still well known. But something is missing from these modern sexual games, although she seems real when she bends over the desk in barely appropriate tights clutching her school books as if it were forbidden.
In new Rangleklods music video "Schoolgirls," Lolita waits in bed for a phone call from her master, stands before a bookshelf and crosses her fingers in anticipation as she naughtily plays with her inhaler. She breaks open the grapefruit and slowly licks the remnants off her fingers with just a sly smile as the juice runs down her slender arms. And that's the moment when your eyes open underwater and the questions race. When she dropped the grapefruit, when the Octopus tentacle tightened around her neck, did she feel it or was it only a fantasy?
On the video the Denmark based duo said, "Schoolgirls is a song about forbidden lust within a total lack of intimacy. A conceptualised piece of erotica. Japanese anime porn and Nabokov's haunting 'Lolita' inspired us to fantasise about a power struggle between desire and submission in a modern world no one fully understands. The video is a visual exploration of these exact themes.”
On this one Esben Anderson and Pernille Smith-Sivertsen teamed up with Copenhagen based music video director and photographer Jonas Bang, whose prodigal work was recognized for the "Best Danish Music Photography Award" when he was still in high school. And he only went up from there, his photos going on to be featured in acclaimed outlets Vice Noisey, Drowned In Sound, Glamcult, Flavorwire, CMJ and on Danish National Television. It's only fitting that he'd collaborate with Rangleklods, who hold a highly technical yet intricately emotional sound in all of their releases. I’ll leave you with a quote from Nabokov, “The rest is rust and stardust.”
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