Perhaps it’s just a reflection of the times, or maybe it’s an oncoming wave of emotive feeling on a more widespread level, but dark electronic music has certainly helped soundtrack 2020. The next artist to dance under the shadows of our darker synth playlists is Arswain, who hits us this week with a cinematic video for his latest single, “Pleasure.”
The Los Angeles composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist born Freddy Avis takes the propulsive “Pleasure” and aligns it with proper visual seduction, enlisting director Will Hamilton (a.k.a. Indexthumb) and choreographer Carly Lave for a vibe that’s also of modern times: A singular dancer under the cover of night, illuminated in jolts by a flashing neon glow. It’s a big mood.
The inspiration for the track, however, at first seems to come from another place entirely, before the vision for the video circles back to the point in a fine act of cohesion that feels illicit at times.
“At the time I wrote ‘Pleasure’ I was fixated on this idea of climate change as an act of violence; how we, consumers in rich countries, are unwittingly killing people overseas by engaging in petty pleasures like driving our cars and buying meaningless products,” says Arswain. “So ‘Pleasure’ is about that daily guilt that accompanies modern life, the costs of which are far greater and broader than we perceive on a daily basis. Video director Will Hamilton understood this vision completely when I came to him for a video, and Carly brought it to life by portraying a club-goer who, like many of us, is aimlessly seeking a kind of fleeting pleasure in nightlife, completely unaware of the consequences.”
Get lost in the darker glow below.