Julia Holter - Our Sorrows

Music by Julia Holter
Video by Naomi Yang
Wardrobe by Gary Graham
From the album "Ekstasis" (RVNG INTL.)

When I first listened to "Our Sorrows" I was intrigued by the lyric in the chorus: "If you call out, I will follow." It didn't seem to me that it was a statement of devotion addressed to a lover, but more about Julia listening for inner direction. When I mentioned this idea to Julia, she excitedly agreed - she said that she often thinks of her music as something that is inside her, almost like an intuition that she allows to lead her.

In the opening scenes of the video Julia is wondering, questioning, trying to divine her future. She sets out onto the streets of Los Angeles, weaving a magenta ribbon throughout the neighborhoods - perhaps using it as a marker to find her way home, perhaps as a visual metaphor for weaving together her experiences - or perhaps she has just decided, for no good reason, that what she wants to do is thread this ribbon through the city…

Julia and I developed the arc of the video as we worked, allowing what we had filmed to determine where we would go next, what would happen. We chose locations that in some way had a resonance to Julia's actual daily life in LA, though I had an idea from the start that she should be making her way from an urban environment to a more pastoral one.

The filming of this video is a result of a personal journey for me as well: directing and filming music videos is something I have only recently started to do, and yet it feels so natural to me - drawing on my years of experience with still photography, and playing music.