“The Siren’s Call” from producer Jumping Back Lash’s latest EP features Nonku Phiri. The video for this track provides the perfect mirror to the electrified melancholy in the sound.
The opening silhouette of Nonku looking away from the viewer sets up a sense of longing and invokes a nostalgic mood. A grainy black and white video of soft waves crawling onto the beach plays in the background. The silhouette fades as one watches the shoreline recede. Nonku reappears, this time facing viewer, eyes closed and slowly swaying her head in a way that imitates the movements of the sea. She fades and the crawling waves greet the viewer once again. Finally Nonku looks directly at the viewer, unintimidating and open. “And in moon-filled skies we gave love a try…”. The gentleness and vulnerability in her face and voice bring an immediacy and added depth to the lyrics. Mentioning the moon while we see images of the beach references how the moon moves the tides, much like how the lyrics reveal how love creates movements of its own.
“You’ve been treating me much like the stormy seas…”. The imagery of the ocean in the background become increasingly violent, contrasting the gentleness in Nonku’s voice, but mirroring her words. “Feeling always fluctuate. Stories always end this way…this feeling of love and hate.”. One is immediately confronted with overlapping image of shattering glass, waves crashing into the shores. The video cuts to flashing lights revealing short moments of dancers underwater folding their bodies around each other.
“Can you hear the siren’s call?”
The aggressive cutting and swapping between shots, the hazy and overlapping videos and images that fade in and out of one another are a metaphor for heavy bass Jumping Back Lash has crafted.
“You got me…you got me…you got me…you you you…got me. Cupid’s got my heart in a chokehold. Ain’t no telling when he’s letting go”
