WL//WH Video Of The Day: SOFT SKIES INC “Your Small Army” (Official Music Video)

Video Of The Day SOFT SKIES INC

Philadelphia-based identical twins and longtime musical confidants Ryan and Martin Rex, active members of the US underground rock music scene music since the late ‘90s as part of the Boston space rock band Lockgroove and mid-2000s alt-rock band Ghost Box Orchestra, started, in 2017, their recording project Soft Skies Inc dropping a fair amount of singles, to then suddenly disappear from view until last mid-September’s surprising resurface with the new song “Sooner Or Later”, Soft Skies Inc’s first since October 2018.

The pair has promised a blossoming series of new releases that extends well into 2025, no earlier than dipping into their musical vault by resurrecting their debut single, “Your Small Army,” which first emerged on the internet seven years ago, a lush and bittersweet track that explores a faded relationship and the mental gymnastics we endure to ignore its reality, headily visualized by English filmmaker and video artist Sapphire Goss, renowned for her collaboration with the acclaimed UK post-punk duo The KVB.

“Your Small Army” was written and arranged by the brothers, with Ryan Rex on vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and keyboards, and Martin Rex on drums, percussion, backing vocals, and keyboards. It was recorded by Chris McLaughlin at 1867 Recording Studio in Boston, co-produced by the trio, and mastered by Heba Kadry at Timeless Mastering in Brooklyn.

The noise-strewn dreamy pop tune sways over a shimmery blanket of bittersweet hope, woven by an intoxicating interplay of insistent vibrant guitar melodies and sullen yet lively bass pulses, ceaselessly churned by stumbling drum beats, to expand into brilliant metaphysical textures that burst and collide into an immersion of lush sentient frequencies. All the while, a mishmash of spiraling light-shivering keyboards and sudden outbursts of harshly abrasive guitars uplift Stipe-like heartfelt vocals into a magical past amid present-day fading.

Photo Credit: Sapphire Goss

The video is made from archived film footage – most of the kinds that are a warning to teenagers for various behaviors, which are often strange but compelling, These are layered with more abstract imagery shot on 8mm film and digital, sometimes taken to match the landscapes in the archive, sometimes more suggestive bursts, rays and ripples. My process is quite intuitive; I listen to the song a lot and try to recreate what I see in my mind’s eye, using the brief as a way into the world we are creating with the music and images together. says Goss

The Official Music Video created by Sapphire Goss brings sound to vision by fusing soul-stirring nostalgia with the brilliance of the cosmos. Like a lucid dream bursting with warm sun rays, a couple happily runs through the forest by a lake shore. Periods of modern-day contemplation under the endless celestial skies shuffle through to carry a sense of melancholy, but also catharsis. The intricate use of lights, shadows, and memories syncs with the intensity of the instrumentation to evoke a colorful explosion of intimate feelings.