Aesthetic, heartfelt, socially relevant and dystopian are just some of the adjectives that can describe the best new music videos which came out in September.
Dymbur – Back Home
Continuing their penchant for taking on socially relevant issues in India, Shillong metallers Dymbur’s latest Khasi folk metal offering is ‘Back Home’. While songs like ‘Child Abuse’ and ‘Rape Culture’ starkly and unflinchingly addressed those specific practices in the country, ‘Back Home’ takes a more metaphorical approach lyrically and remains true to their intense visual storytelling in the music video.
Directed by Dymbur founder and guitarist-producer Cornelius Kharsyntiew, ‘Back Home’ focuses on child abuse, trafficking, LGBTQIA+ rights and prostitution in a plot that gets into the heart of a brothel and the conditions that sex workers face. In the midst of it is a young girl who is sold into prostitution, until she finds her way out.
Rahul Advani – Ready to Breathe
Singapore/Bengaluru singer-songwriter Rahul Advani has taken long to release new material, but he makes it count with his affable song ‘Ready to Breathe’. By the artist’s own admission, writer’s block was a major hurdle he cleared to put this track out.
It’s something he addresses in the music video as well, which holds a mirror to the not so distant past in which some of us transitioned from working in offices with colleagues to managing everything by ourselves due to work from home regulations.
Directed by Advani and Weiqi Chuah, we see a regular customer service rep (essayed by Vidyuth Gargi) navigate the WFH life, learning to play ukulele and eventually getting the hang of things, much like the encouraging bright pop that the singer-songwriter offers.
Shilpa Ananth – The Search
Vocalist and songwriter Shilpa Ananth weaves together another stunning visual aesthetic with her new music video for ‘The Search’, shooting in Jaipur with filmmaker Suruchi Sharma and production house Studio Ainak. It helps massively that ambient artist Riatsu’s brooding composition is the anchor for Ananth’s lyrics of self-questioning.
The artist herself portrays a stone-faced protagonist at times, and becoming deeply expressive at other moments, with help from dancers Akshay Kundu and Purvi Khandelwal. It’s slick, outlandish, and metaphorical in all the ways you’d want. Every sequence seems meticulously crafted, and it works towards a vision that few other indie artists have right now.
Ritviz – Aaj Na
Given the million-streamed music videos he’s had so far, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say it takes a bit for one Ritviz video to top the previous one. But ‘Aaj Na’ does exactly that. The song off his heartfelt album Mimmi —a collaboration with his mother and an ode to the artist and person she is—gets a story presented by Catnip’s Reema Maya. It stars Sheeba Chadha and Adarsh Gourav as a mother and son pair who are there for each other through their respective heartbreaks. They cheer each other up in comical, heart-warming ways, and each frame and expression in the music video exudes a charm that can arguably only be housed within a Ritviz song.
Siddrth – Paravaigal
In a scene right out of a Black Mirror episode, a virtual tool for accessing memories becomes addictive for Tamil artist Siddrth in the music video for his song ‘Paravaigal’. He sings about escape and fading away. In the video directed by Shariq Farooqui, Siddrth puts on a visor of sorts and gets sucked into a parallel world where he can go back to memories of a previous relationship and inevitably get stuck in the past.
Heartbreak in the age of dating apps, long-distance scenarios and more is explored through a kind of tragic sci-fi lens, making ‘Paravaigal’ an immersive watch each time, coupled with Siddrth’s Tamil and English vocals and future-pop production.
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