KING MONDAY FT azileli MUSIC VIDEO
Directing
Collaborative duo Azileli and King Monday have just released their music video for the debut single ‘Flood’ exclusively premiered here at Noctis magazine. The song illustrates the effects “of an intense relationship and how it can come to an end, where emotions turn from nourishing to destructive”. King Monday provides the production with inspiration from the likes of Four Tet and Burial, he creates a beat full of melancholy, until the chorus hits where the beat becomes faster and broken. Azileli provides the lyrical and vocal input which compliments the production, creating a sombre mood that matches the concept the artists were going for.
The music video directed by Elizabeth Donovan and assisted by Rodney Rico pulls all these emotions together to visually illustrate the song. Drawing on dancers portraying three different couples, the director and lyricist wanted to bring an inclusive message; “we used couples that are not solely heterosexual to ensure that the film is genderless and expresses all kinds of relationships, reaching out to everyone.” Shot in three locations the video jumps between settings, one location is an urban environment where the solemn activities of day to day life occur. Another is based in a personal room where intimate feelings develop and the third is shot at a beach, a place where people go to escape and feel a sense of freedom.
In a world where music videos often over sexualise straight relationships the team were keen to counteract this, “this video supports the LGBTQ community and encourages the industry to this often-overlooked social group and normalise their place in the media.” It’s this message that comes across strongest in the video and one that’s very important right now. The direction of the video thinks outside of the box, it looks at the norms of the industry and does the opposite. Sitting on the outside looking in, emerging artists often have this ability to push a concept forward that surprises the industry, I think this piece represents exactly that.
Words: Jake Wright
Director: Elizabeth Rose Donovan
Producer: Elizabeth Rose DonovanAssistant Director: Rodney Rico
Wardrobe: Pete Clubb Editor: Elizabeth Rose DonovanColourist: Oliver Banks Thompson
Grading Company: Electric Theatre CollectiveChoreography: Emelia East
Dancers: Natalia Gabrielczyk, Riley Wolf, Flora Grant, Steff D’Arcy, Kieran Potter and Patryk Zamojski
Label: Bonfire Records