Week in Pop: D.A. Stern, Mary Ocher, Natural Velvet

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Desert

The latest from Spain’s sophisti-pop duo Desert; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Last year we featured Barcelona duo Desert when they released their CSCN EP & now we present the stateside debut of the imaginative visual for the sensory sweeping single “Sense Likes”. Directed by Castells & Garay with cinematography by César Villalba—Desert’s Cristina Checa & Eloi Caballé are seen blending styles of the ancients with a mix of futurism that is created to the electronic ambient beat of their own respective drums. The two take facets from the most ethereal components of musical crafts & elevate them to new horizons of arts that are extended in an existence beyond the digital pale.
Desert’s Cristina & Eloi with the visual help of Castells, Garay & César take the sensational groundwork for “Sense Likes” & create an entire, elaborate world built around the single. From lavishally adorned laptops, elaborate opportunities of dress-up, classic imagery & a host of various glamorous encoutremonts; Desert is seen dwelling in a beautiful world that is all their own. Digital visual effects mix senses of classicism with elements of the emoji-obsessed internet age as the duo indulge in fancy jewelry & a dance party designed that marries everything from the ancients & styles that sail on the wings of tomorrow’s fashions. Flashes of computer code occasionally flashes onto the frame like a hack that connects the modern age with the storied eras that existed long before the world wide web of information super-highways. The juxtaposition of these timeline polarities is mixed in mind flipping manner that entertains the questions of what tomorrow’s ruins might be like enraptured in a world of colors & blended chronologies.

Barcelona’s Desert from the top, Cristina Checa & Eloi Caballé; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Desert’s Cristina & Eloi shared the following introductory reflections:

To us this video represents an artistic reminder of mortality (memento mori) which revolves around the concept of Iam—I am not. We really love the weird mystical vibe it got and the mixture between the old and the new since in between them we can find an empty space. We really had a super great time making it with our friends!

Directors Castells & Garay shared the following reflective thoughts:

Will our plastic sons remember our plastic dreams?

Someday, somewhere, long before we are gone, maybe one of our creations will try to remember us, by putting together lost fragments of its memory from our world: a plastic corrupted memento mori.

Listen to more from Desert via Spotify.