WL//WH Video Of The Day: WILL LAUT “Lost and Found” (Official Music Video)

Video Of The Day  WILL LAUT

Conceived in studios located in Los Angeles and Paris, WILL LAUT is a recently established music project instigated by veteran avant-garde sound artist Frankie Gothard, aka COH (Raster-Noton, Editions Mego, Houndstooth), a pioneer of the late 90s computer avant-garde music scene, and vocalist and performer William Laut.

The project draws inspiration from COH’s earlier collaborations with vocal performers like John Balance of Coil, Cosey Fanni Tutti of Throbbing Gristle, and fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester

William Laut’s music is a blend of ambient pop, noir minimalism, and synthesizer tango, featuring atmospheric textures, minimalist rhythms, and haunting crooner-style lyrics.

An Official Music Video, directed by Paolo Dell’Orso, accompanies the second excerpt and opening track, Lost and Found, from the upcoming debut self-titled EP Will Laut”, slated for release on May 31, 2024, via Stockholm-based Everall & COH co-run record label wavetrap.

The spiritual, emotional and evocative, “Lost and Found” awakens hypnotic, softly laid, thumping ritual drums, punctuated by a trembling and pulsing tapestry of buzzing strains, swift crackling percussive patterings, and ripplings of distorted icy bright synth melodies, to slowly swell and surround a haunting, deeply felt primal vocal, urging “let’s fool around” lest our empty hearts become stone. 

Paolo Dell’Orso directs a poetic audiovisual journey through a shadowy maze of ancient doorways, leading to a breathtaking catharsis of light in a top of the mountain experience.  Sinister and hypnotic, a blend of jittery editing, strobing disassociation, and shapeshifting shadows overlay intimate shots of Laut and Gothard, to evoke a sense of nocturnal foreboding. Then, an unexpected shift of perception occurs with a symbolic, transformational, and uplifting expanse of a sun-drenched victory.

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