Black Marble has an excellent new video for the track “Feels” off the upcoming LP Bigger Than Life due out October 25th via Sacred Bones. We last heard from Chris Stewart’s project this past July when he released a video for the album’s lead single, “One Eye Open.” This newest effort is directed by Izrayl Brinsdon and he explains that it is a visual exploration of how “past trauma” can be triggered by “space and place.”
Lyrically, “Feels” touches on notions of nostalgia as the song’s fictional character reflects on his “nineties” past with memories of having a “radio show” and “working a blood drive in DC.” For Stewart, this fictional remembrance seem to trigger very real reflections on his musical past as he explains: “…that part of the country was central to underground music in America and having radio shows on college radio was a popular thing for students to do.”
But, for Stewart, “Feels” also opens the door on a sense of nostalgia regarding this musical past and its’ relation to the present. Citing music’s communal purpose, he wonders whether internet culture has led to a “digital pastiche of correlated yet not at all united artists,” while longing for a time when “local scenes seemed more cohesive and unified and maybe a little more innocent.“
Izrayl Brinsdon’s visual portrayel of “Feels” also explores the role of memory, but rather than a remembrance of a more “innocent” past, here, an empty house and an antique piece of furniture trigger “past trauma.” Brinsdon explains:
“Physical objects transcend time and present an intangible past to the subject. The use of real VHS footage from family archives establishes a source of nostalgia that is honest and without fabrication. While conversing with Black Marble, it became evident that the lyrical and visual narratives were cohesive. Combined, the audience is left with a farewell note to the past. No matter how vivid a memory, we must all keep moving forward.”
