The Koxx released their last album Bon Voyage back in June, accompanied by a MV for their title track, “Love Dance”. Now they are releasing a MV for another of the tracks in the album, “Take Me Far From Home”, as a collaboration with Fred Perry Korea and VIEWZIC. Two names to remember for every K-indie fan out there, Fred Perry and VIEWZIC have been collaborating for quite some time now for the Fred Perry Subculture Viewzic Sessions, the first one being a clothing brand and the second one a studio specialized in VJ and media arts. The Fred Perry Subculture Viewzic Sessions consist on a series of collaboration with the top indie stars of the moment for gigs and MVs, having already collaborated with names such as Idiotape, Glen Check, Casker or Yi Sung Yol, always with striking aesthetics and high technology projects.
“Take Me Far From Home” is no exception, but a really worthy part of the Fred Perry Subculture Viewzic Sessions based on the stop motion technique. Check it out below and we’ll get more in depth about it later.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS-TYznnrTw&w=560&h=315]
“Take Me Far From Home” is probably the best MV The Koxx has ever released, because it manages to be artsy (oh how I love artsy stuff) and still heavily rely on the guys as performers, which is one of their stronger points. The MV was shot as a photographic session of the members performing and then the photographies were printed and used in various ways. The stop motion technique is not all new in the K-indie scene: eAeon already used it for his fantastic “Bulletproof” MV, which took one year to be produced (if that says something about laborious the stop-motion is); it is used differently here and it definitely didn’t took a year to produce this video, but they both share the special atmosphere stop motion creates.
The stop motion is used in a very particular way here. It’s very plastic — in some of the shots the members are transformed into cutouts and introduced into a miniaturized London, in others they are pages of a book or just picture of themselves. And it all makes sense in the context of the song: when the lyrics talk about being out of place, the MV portraits the members as representations of themselves or printed on books where they seem to be struggling to get free — not even once do the members appear directly filmed, always through pictures of them– when they talk about wanting to go far from home, the pictures of them are taken out of context and put in foreign scenarios.
When I woke up with a massive hang over
I didn’t even know where I was oh
I couldn’t find myself in anywhere
But time has stopped, all my senses has gone numb
When I was seeking something new
Take me far from home
Can you take me far from home?
Just let me walk away, to the place where I won’t sway
Another positive point of the MV is that it manages to avoid blandness or repetition despite the limited materials they use. The MV explores all the possibilities the cutouts offer, adding also some lyrics towards the end of the video, and nicely follow the rhythm of the song: the catatonic guitar solo has its reflection in a faster succession of photographies, and at some points like the end of the video the images even follow the rhythm of the drums.
“Take Me Far From Home” is one of the best MVs I have seen lately: careful production, original idea, close relation with the song and beautiful aesthetics. I have yet to see a MV from the Fred Perry Subculture Viewzic Sessions that I didn’t find absolutely fantastic, and it’s endearing to see someone’s actively working for the alternative scene in Korea (can someone come and do the same in my country, please?). Everything screams ‘hipster’, and I love hipster-ish pretty things, so my overall rating is a 5/5.
