Amy Fairchild is about to release a video to her song “Long Way Down,” from last year’s album, simply titled Amy Fairchild. Fairchild’s video indicates she has come up with something brilliant by accident. It’s almost like a Jackson Pollock painting in which certain images are combined in a planned way to make a wholly formed impression. Fans of music and art must tune into Fairchild’s Facebook music page this Tuesday, January 20th, 2015 to check out what she has come up with.
Visuals include Fairchild on a swing set, a sandy shoreline passing by, a rainy night seen through a car windshield, and most strikingly, a close up of Fairchild’s eye casting a forlorn look into the camera. In these visuals, Fairchild gives us a sense of her need to get away from feeling lost by actually losing herself in a journey to an uncertain destination.
Then, she suddenly startles with another image, a close up of her lips moving out of sync with her song. One is struck by her sense of isolation, of speaking to another person or more than one person who are out of sync with her conversation. It reminds us of those difficult, frustrating chats when we’re talking to someone who is so focused on what they have to say that they are not listening. No matter how much we move our jaws, express our thoughts, our words continue to fall on deaf ears.
The novelist Joseph Conrad once wrote that we live as we dream: alone. Conrad was focused on how there is no one else behind one’s eyes but oneself, and that we really do, each of us, live alone. Fairchild has brilliantly captured that feeling, of being a sole traveler in the world. Even when her video switches to images of her walking majestically across a field of grass in her fetching black dress, she conveys a sense of life’s solo journey. As an artist, she’s on a spiritual quest, not only in her song but also in her visionary expression. Fairchild’s natural presence, not unlike a film or stage actor, is another plus. She easily conveys that there is much going on in the depth of her soul as she takes her stroll through the field and across a paved area in a city scene.
Speaking of Fairchild’s emotional state, she has assembled these images to allow a glimpse into her sub-conscious. She drives by many striking vistas but doesn’t stop to look more closely at them. This conveys that her need for a spiritual journey is stronger than her need to explore the scenic beauty around her. She’s just letting the world flow past her as these visuals move with an artful grace.
Looking pensive while observing the world through driver’s sunglasses is another sign that something dramatic is going on just beneath the surface of her cool demeanor. Interestingly enough, most of these images were shot with I-Phones and a small camera. So, her video looks hauntingly familiar, like the picture and video images we see every day on social media. Yet, this particular assemblage of visuals, in the order they come up, are set to key moments in her song, and that makes her music strike the listener’s emotional core as much as her video.
As a song, “Long Way Down” is as perky and straightforward as anything from last year’s exceptional album. The tune’s shifting dynamics give it a forceful personality and it adds extra kick to the visuals presented.
There is nothing like an emotive song turned into a video influenced by art house filmmaking. Fairchild will debut her video “Long Way Down” to the public this coming Tuesday on her website:
Here’s a sneak peak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwCa9gxCPIk
