Video of the Day Melted Mirrors
Canadian 3-piece band Melted Mirror coalesced in 2013 around the visionary creativity of Chris Zajko, cult figure of Calgary‘s underground music scene, as frontman of local post-punk legends Sharp Ends and later The Soft Option. Driven by the intent to add atmospheric vintage synths and heady electronic dance beats to a gloomy and dark post-punk backbone in order to ‘make people dance to ominous music’, soon attracted the collaboration of synthesist Cian Haley (Catholic Girls) and guitarist Jeebs Nabil (Memo/Violence) to give birth to a memorable self-produced debut cassette album titled “Borderzone” in Octocer 2016 via local independent label Wyatt Records.
At this very time the band have announced the release of their long-awaited sophomore album “Past Life”, produced by Nik Kozub (Humans, The Wet Secrets), due, cassette/CD and digital, on March 1st, and also shared the first single/videoclip for the song “Open Wire”
A superb exercise in darkly synth-pop euphoria lead by crispy, bouncing and hypnotic synth lines that sparkle and burst throughout underpinned by steady pounding, clashing drumbeats, claps and subdued bristling and warbling New Order-esque bass nuances to introduce deep, steady, soaring vocals shift to aggressive, frustrated howls interjected with monosyllabic grunts and groans, as faster hollow beats blend with the rising tone and amplitude of synths, and higher twinkly and bursting guitar melodies to create deliriously fevered dark dancefloor stomper.
A song about imprisonment, deception, and victimization. An angry, vengeful, and wicked man, trapped in a computer, must trick people into asking him to come out. Similar to “a genie in a lamp,”the right question will set him free but there is an undisclosed cost or sacrifice involved. The cryptic words do not disclose the entrapment, or what fuels his hatred and fury…that is left open to interpretation.
The companion video, directed by Guillaume Carlier, uses dramatic imagery, black lights, split screen media, and time lapse photography to build an intense cyberpunk world of hi-jinks and technology. A digital image of a man screaming and writhing unable to leave splits the screen in two dissecting, distorting, and exposing his barely human form. Sped up footage on a big city highway at night leaves psychedelic trails of neon lights. All the while a headless, disfigured “body” in ceremonial attire, moves slowly performing some kind of ritual. Fluid images of smoke, blood, and water shift to space gas formations alluding to an other worldly existence.
A sci-fi, cyberpunk short film reminiscent of The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, and the original Blade Runner with evocative vocals and dark electronic sounds make this a captivating, engaging, on the edge of your seat thriller. A definite must see!!
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