Having recently announced their new album Oceans of Time is due September 16th via Sacred Bones, Gloria de Oliveira & Dean Hurley are back with their new track “Something To Behold“, alongside a video directed by Alex O. Smith (Coldplay, Peaches, Donny Benet, Olympia).
On the track, Oliveira said: “‘Something to Behold’ bloomed out of a feeling of anxiety that had been creeping up on me more and more; living far from my family, watching loved ones getting older or in harm’s way. I fear losing them to time; not fearing my own mortality, but being left alone on this planet. To me, this is one of the most difficult cognitive challenges we earthly creatures have to grapple with – all we can do is try to merely soothe the sinking feeling by basking in the love we hold for others, and accepting our fate. The imagery of the song draws from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, an epic poem retelling the biblical story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve – and, thus, of humankind. Upon first hearing the instrumental track of the song, I was hypnotized by the cyclical movements that immediately felt like a mantra to me – so I came up with a simple, lyrical meditation. The echoing, overlapping vocals as the track progresses are akin to those intrusive thoughts keeping you up at night, and simultaneously a calming mantra to then recite to yourself.”
Made up of a series of ominous scenes to encapsulate the track’s ethereal atmosphere, Gloria de Oliveira offered the following on the video: “Dean and I had already had conversations about TV shows like Unsolved Mysteries, X-Files and Beyond Belief, and how they had an effect on us growing up. Alex then told us about this BBC show Ghostwatch from the 1990s, that had left a considerable impression on him – it was in the format of a live broadcast where they used actual TV presenters like Michael Parkinson, and it was extremely convincing. Even though you knew it was all a bit silly really, it was incredibly disturbing for some people. It all centered around a haunted house, where there had been sightings of a figure called Pipes named by a child after the sound of the pipes clanging in the night. They embedded images of him into the footage, so you might spot him, or it could be subliminal. Another obvious reference was, of course, The Thing – based on all of this, Alex came up with the plot of ‘an aurora borealis in the form of a woman, who haunts an Antarctic research team.”
Director Alex O. Smith added: “I was Intrigued by the Cosmic Network universe that Dean alludes to in the promotional films for Oceans of Time. Dean and Gloria gave me complete creative freedom to interpret the song. We had initial discussions about the feel of it that helped me feel confident moving in this direction. I wanted to create a ghost story, about themes of mortality and isolation inspired by the song, and to pay tribute to the BBC Christmas ghost stories and Paranormal TV series that would terrify me as a child. I felt like this would be the kind of archive film screened on the Cosmic Network after hours, sandwiched in between psychic hotline dial-ins and re-runs of the X Files. I worked with my camera assistant, who also happens to build film miniatures, to create an Antarctic horror short, with all effects created in-camera.”
Listen to “Something To Behold” and watch the video for it below:
Live shows:
Nov 18 – Gloria de Oliveira show at Synästhesie 7
Nov 30 – Gloria de Oliveira show at Atelier 210 in Brussels, Belgium