Born in Poland, artisically raised in Glasgow and now based in Brooklyn, Ela Orleans has always crafted eclectic lo-fi pop representative of her many pins on the world map that's shrouded in a dark sense of the Iron Curtian territory she grew up in. On the title track off her 2012 album Tumult In Clouds on Clan Destine, the lyrics are based on a poem by W.B. Yeats called "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death". As you might assume, it's a bit of a morbid piece and the new video for the track isn't far off, but for a girl who grew up in Auschwitz, it's likely not an all too uncommon theme.
The clip is a collection of oddly uncomfortable, propaganda-like, black-and-white aerial wartime footage that combines with the the sharp tension of Orlean's violins to create a vivid sense of the fate the Irish Airman foretold in Yeats's prose. While the source of the film and Ela's relationship to the poem are a mystery, there's no doubt watching the video you're affected with a sense impending doom that's pushed even further by the distancing inclusion of subtitles. Anyone else have goosebumps?
