Back in May I reviewed the gorgeous album ‘Wooden Box with Strings’ from Sydney’s Warmer – the solo project of the enigmatic John Encarnacao from The Nature Strip. This is an album that simply continues to grow in stature.
Following the release of a single from this album, we are very pleased to premiere the new animated video for the delightfully whimsical track ‘Fishes Swim and Coral Grow’. Created by local animator Oliver Abbott, the video captures the whimsical nature of the song perfectly.
In my review of the album, I noted this track is an epic highlight with its recurring guitar riff and Encarnacao’s yearning voice and sparkling back up singers (Mandy Pearson and Zoe Carides). The song, for me, echoes a pastoral, bucolic theme across the album as a whole, no doubt encouraged by the sweeping strings and crisp, punchy acoustic guitars. All through a slightly surreal aspect.
In the video, an isolated black-clothed figure drifts up from an office chair into the stratosphere – lonely and distantly drifting across the sky accompanied at times by ghostly doppelgängers and black birds. Drifting briefly into an dark urban nightmare, the figure returns to his chair and it ends deep underwater where a mysterious corpse rests covered by encroaching nature – it is a beautiful, enigmatic piece that reflects environmental themes of decay and loss, with perhaps vestiges of hope in the resilience of nature and in the power of the sea.
Exquisite imagery for an exquisite song.
The single was released in October through China Pig/Half A Cow Records with an instrumental B-side entitled ‘Moon Cries’ – a variation on a track from the album called ‘Cry for The Moon’: a raw, crystalline piece that is almost discordant but entirely vibrant and shimmering. You can get the tracks through the link below.
Feature Photograph: Zoe Carides
