It is very possible that the music video ‘Mediocre Frequency‘ (ft. Esha, Farrah, Fraan & Mason) proposes a fairly familiar scenario to many spectators. But this is precisely the special aura of this musical-narrative experiment. By adopting a backdrop inspired by the medieval imaginary, directors Rakib Erick and Christian Kennedy aim to translate the message of the lyrics that talk about the inherent anxiety of total solitude in a dynamic story about loss and overcoming internal barriers. Indeed, the epic core that accompanies the music doesn’t have a purely descriptive role, being a metaphoric layer of the sound dimension, but the creators of this short film are aware of the special quality of music to transgress all types of language, in order to crystalise in different forms, sublimating the acoustic harmonies in a linear, but rather catchy, micro-narration. Perhaps the epic evolution of the music video is more optimistic than the acoustic matter of this melancholic song with soul influences, but the strategy by which the directors develop two almost disparate worlds that converge only in particular subtle segments is as effective here as in other videos specific to the new stylistic formula of the recent visual-musical experiments.
A knight defends a young woman at the cost of his life, trying to save her from a crowd of barbarians who chase them in a forest. But the two protagonists do not manage to escape the unpredictable attack of the enemies. Despite the desperate situation, the young woman discovers inside her a mysterious force that will help her face any obstacle. In a parallel universe, a series of visual segments capture two vocalists singing the destiny of this special protagonist.
The passion for the medieval imaginary is no longer a surprise for many modern artists, whether they are literary or cinematic projects that iterate epic and imagistic structures combining the fantasy pattern with fictional incursions into the world of knights, princesses and mythical creatures. This video adopts a popular formula, reconstituting a vegetal and clothing scenery specific to this type of fantastic-medieval space, opting for a simple narrative strategy, but quite effective for the cinematographic means used by the two directors. Without being a music video that invokes an ostentatious feminist discourse in its subtext, Rakib Erick and Christian Kennedy change the balance of powers between characters, transforming the hunted princess into an active element that suggests the ability of the female soul to revive its own inner resources. ‘Mediocre Frequency’ is a kind of modern fairy tale, a metaphor about the incredible power of the individual to trigger its mysterious inner resources, but also an attractive music video that will captivate music lovers not only through its nostalgic tonalities, but also through its poetic lyrics.
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