“La jolie Seine t’a avalée et recrachée.Il est trop tard, je ne peux plus t’aider. (The pretty Seine has swollowed you up and spat you out. It’s too late, I can’t help anymore!)”
580 Miles is the distance between Germany-based Miriam Christina (MC) and Slovakia-based Peter Chudik‘s (PC) home towns, it is also the name of their collaborative side project where (PC) aka AnAstromo composes, plays musical instruments, edits, and mixes and (MC) aka Theothersideofwho? focuses on vocals and lyrics. In 2017 the duo recorded “Lovers of Sleep”, but unfortunately they lost part of the data and could not recreate the atmosphere thus rendering another version null. The lyrics, written and performed in French and English tell the eerie tale of a woman steadfast on revenge after a girl is found murdered on the banks of the Seine River in France.
A shocking number of women have been found dead or gone missing along the shores of the Seine River, none as recognized as “L’Inconnue de la Seine” ( The Unknown Woman of the Seine), whose death mask became a regular fixture in artists’ homes after 1900. When rumors revealed she was the woman behind the Mona Lisa smile her status catapulted into an icon and she was graced with the posthumous title “The Muse of Paris.”
A video release for the macabre murder combines the harrowing abduction, with intense sombre electronic atmospherics and hypnotic pulsing rhythms caressed in the resounding emotional clarity and inflections of (MC)’s enigmatic voice.
High anxious propellers rise to life as sad and terse sparse piano notes fall like teardrops through the thickly slow and ominous “foghorn” drone as striking, powerful, deeply saddened and revolted female vocals simmering in furious disbelief, and anguish foreshadow danger and revenge. Relentless, repetitious mesmeric basslines crawl under clear, glossy, spacious synths to represent time’s ruthless toil on existence with drone bursts struggling to rise and fall like gasps of breath overcome in the violent swirls and rushes of jet effects and emotional mood-stirring melodies. “Il t’a tué, il doit mourir.”(He killed you. He Must die!)”
A beautifully haunting black and white short film dramatically depicted from the perspective of the one left behind, gives no clue as to what happened to the missing girl, only how intensely horrific it felt to lose her. Two unsuspecting girls laugh, their silhouettes animated and indistinguishable, twirling their umbrellas playfully, set against the backdrop of a full moon casting shadows of rain falling into puddles to form ripples into the reflections shining light into the darkness. Suddenly one girl disappears, her friend looks around puzzled, her hand still outstretched as if holding another, then shock quickly turns to fear as she realizes the gravity of the situation. Time has passed illustrated through, spinning watch hands, the lost highway, and low dark clouds to create urgent anxiety felt many years later within the woman who stands with an umbrella, her eyes searching in all directions for something she has lost.
The single “Lovers of Sleep” backed by the instrumental “Missed calls” is available on Bandcamp.
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