LISTEN: Sunny Gray – Equilibrium
Video: Sunny Gray – Equilibrium
London-based artist Sunny Gray releases the video for his brand new single “Equilibrium” on July 26 via the burgeoning music collective Exilence. The music video, premiered by Clash Magazine, was directed and edited by two-time winner of the 48-hour film festival, Johnny Barker (Funny Girls, Jono & Ben) of Projectors and Collectors Productions. Prior to this, the single premiered on tastemaker channel La Belle Musique, and was produced by V1TA production team and recorded at Fish Factory Studios in London (already home for the recordings of Nothing but Thieves and King Krule). December last year bore witness to his own unique version of ‘Teardrop’ by trip-hop giants Massive Attack as a 20th Anniversary tribute to their Mezzanine album.
Italian-born Sunny Gray credits his father for his attraction to music from back when his father was the guitarist of a band in Germany. He was also the first one to hand Sunny a guitar, which the artist has never stopped using since. In 2012 as a move for his musical career, Sunny found himself packing his things and moving to London with his then band Wise Kebabs. Sunny is a relentless artist. He decided to put roots down in Camden Town, the home of many of his musical heroes. Sunny Gray has since become a solo artist strong in his own sound and dreams of his music reaching audiences far and wide.
Sunny Gray has a list of influences spanning over decades of the best rock and electronic artists from The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Clash, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden to R&B/Soul artists with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Jordan Rakei and Sampha and the trip-hop names like Massive Attack and Portishead. While Sunny Gray’s own music he describes as ‘melantronic soul’, as it touches on soul, blues and electronic music best compared to the current sound of the Aussie Nick Murphy/ Chet Faker, neo-blues & soul star Rag n’Bone Man, some Maggie Rogers and the debonaire vocal stylings of Panic! At the Disco.
Opening with a beautiful panning shot of stained-glass windows, the stage for Equilibrium is set in a desolate old church chamber. Spectral, veiled contortionists and dancers appear alongside a dapper Sunny Gray, providing a performance of controlled, visceral movements that successfully capture the tracks potent energy and ominous tone. The muted, earthy colours of the dusty church interior and its masked-statue-like occupants are juxtaposed with the colourful, high stained-glass windows and ominous red-lit scenes of Sunny Gray addressing the viewer directly as he delivers his weighty lines. It is a confrontational and unsettling video, drawing on the tracks concerns around a decaying humanity and the need to find a balance before it is too late. “We are Light but we need Darkness,” says Sunny Gray, “it’s up to us to define harmony.”
Regarding the music video’s conception and creation, Johnny Barker, the director, says: “The goal for this film was to create a performance-based cinematic video with strong visual components. We explored a multitude of in-camera effects, dance, movement, and choreography, alongside vocal performance to touch on several concepts, such as spiritual and environmental degradation and the clash between opposing forces”
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