RIGHT. First things first, and full disclosure: we adore Bastien Keb over here at Backseat Mafia. His latest album, The Killing Of Eugene Peeps, is so brilliantly eclectic, multifaceted, genre-busting, that we’re running out of superlatives for it.
It weaves together chilling. beautiful acoustic tunes, the best of Italian soundtrack jazz (Nicola Conte, Piero Piccioni), a little hip-hop, and an Angel Heart-style noir story – it’s quite the experience, a novel of an album, let alone an imaginary soundtrack. (Read our review, here).
And he’s just released a video for “Rabbit Hole”, one of the leaf skeleton-delicate acoustic tunes from an album that fires brilliantly in all dimensions. In twin harmony with himself, Bastien conveys that 4am soul chill of stirring, awaking and realising your lover has left you.
The video, which stars Jay Pastelak and Hannah Marianetti, sees our unnamed and life-ravaged protagonist questing across lakes and through woods, witnessing, arresting at the sight of, encountering otherly icons of someone lost. It’s an apposite and beautiful visual rendering of the song.
Director Sidney Kreitzer says: “From the first listening of ‘Rabbit Hole’, many of these images were so clearly painted in my head. Then the global lockdown occurred and I felt like I was chasing after these images with no clue at all on when we might be able to create a film again.
“I wrote the story for this film in the early days of the shutdown and I think I was unaware of how much that environment may have shaped this narrative. At times of great uncertainty and estrangement, I think we dwell on time lost and the people, things, and passions that were once close to us. I wanted to create a world for our character that exists in no one specific time or place. A world for him to explore both mentally and physically in order to find a semblance of what he’s looking for.
“It was an honour getting to create something for an artist like Bastien Keb; his music is so inherently cinematic. The track feels so organic and visceral so in my mind we had no other option but to shoot on film to tell this story.
“I’m thankful to Bastien Keb and Gearbox for trusting me with this project, and to my amazing friends in the cast and crew for really breathing this to life.”
Bastien Keb’s The Killing of Eugene Peeps is available now from Gearbox Records on digital, CD and vinyl formats. Order yours here or from your trusted local record emporium.
