Paul Kalkbrenner is an artist known for pushing the boundaries between his musical output and visual mediums. He played the lead role in the cult feature-length film Berlin Calling, for which he also wrote the platinum-selling soundtrack. His music videos have included the three-part epic Florian series, in collaboration with Droga5, and most recently a partnership with acclaimed Siberian director Taisia Deeva.
Kalkbrenner’s work with Deeva is re-invigorating what a music video can be; her sweeping imaginative fantastical story-telling is the perfect foil for Kalkbrenner’s lush, grand techno, as evidenced in her debut video for Paul, the award-nominated Part Twelve.
Deeva’s vision for Kalkbrenner’s latest single, Parachute, is an epic slice of surrealist optimism set within a brutalist Kiev housing complex. Her push and pull between other-worldly fantasy and stark backdrops explore the yo-yoing moods of hope and despair that the world has cycled through in 2020, and, above all, our continued desire for human connection.
Related
Unity Vega releases debut album ‘Two Sword’
Anna Tur and Metodi Hristov collaborate on “Binary Fusion”In Deeva’s Parachute, we see characters literally fly through the air, suspended hundreds of feet high, swim-up stairways and jump out of 30 story windows. She eschewed green screens, opting to work with cranes and ropes to bring more realism to the shoot.
Deeva’s work brings the lyrics of Parachute to life, especially when you consider lines like ‘free-falling back to earth’ and ‘I’d rather fly with you’. However it’s the sentiment of Parachute that has propelled it to over 2.5 million streams and counting, and it’s this that Deeva manages to capture. The melodies and emotion that Paul imbued Parachute with make it a hopeful anthem, one that makes you want to connect, to dance and to hug someone. It’s this feeling that comes at a time when these simple things are denied us, that makes the video and the track so powerful.
