Today, Amsterdam-based multi-disciplinary artist Mila V delivers her fourth solo effort ‘Static‘ alongside a cyber-fuelled music video self-directed in collaboration with Jessica van Halteren.
‘Static’ emerges as a beguiling hybrid of synth-pop elegies, neo-gothic electro, bass-heavy breaks and shadowy R&B. The album unfolds as a dark manifesto, a sonic exploration of the fragility of mortal dreams, yet it pledges unwavering loyalty to the rise of a high-tech dystopia—where the human soul is subsumed in a burning technological inferno.
The video unfolds as a trippy, otherworldly fantasia where a white-horned space empress breaks free from her ultra-wired armour, escaping into the deepest recesses of our collective subconscious. As the narrative unwinds, the protagonist drifts through surreal corridors of liberation. In this space, the apocalypse is refracted through a laser-like, dystopian lens, projected by unseen malevolent forces. Explaining her vision, Mila V reveals a dark and cerebral approach to storytelling, one that merges the grotesque with the sublime in a fractured performance:
“As me and Jessica (van Halteren) often create complex video narratives with a lot of cast, locations and set design. For Flamethrower we kind of wanted to go back to the essential as me as a performer, and together with light artist Dimme van Harten we came upon the idea to let light be the leading role in the video and how we could portray these different stages of energy, and how I could at first be haunted by the light but it would transform into me becoming the light. The inspiration also came from something very simple, a video of a guy knocked out at a party sitting on a chair with a massive spotlight and lasers pointed at his head. Something about it felt very mundane and otherworldly at the same time. For the performance I was inspired by David Byrne’s (Talking Heads) style of movement and live performances, as I think he really nails being somewhat theatrical and natural at the same time, and a live video from Blue Monday by New Order where he holds the same emotion the whole video through. ”
‘Static’ is out now. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
