Vee Hua 華婷婷This black and white for Reigns’ “The Diagram” is a classy one. For the single from their upcoming album, The Widow Blades, they expertly bathe the entire video in blacks using minimalistic compositions and heavy strobing. Given the careful planning that no doubt went into every shot, the appeal of this video lies more in the relationship between the audio and the visuals from shot to shot, than in any cohesive storyline or message. Best of all, even though there is not very much going on, the video encourages one’s constant attentiveness.
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To shed some light about the album’s actual content, though, is a snippet from their press release: “Whilst growing up in the country Reigns, Operatives A & B, from an early age, became aware of the bizarre yet inconclusive fate of a woman from a neighbouring village. It took some years (and a great deal of wading through a seemingly endless stream of local conjecture) for them to ascertain that the woman in question was Millicent Blades: a middle-aged widow who had disappeared during the blizzard of 1978, vanishing somewhere between the villages of Tup’s Fold and Tone Gulley. Nothing was found of her save a set of interrupted footprints and a pile of clothes – all turned inside out. The intervening years have provided much in the way of outlandish theories pertaining to her disappearance but very little in the way of answers. In a possibly futile attempt to reverse this situation and still haunted by the stories they heard as children, Operatives A & B went back to the area to document her final journey across the countryside.”
Made by Toshadeva Palani.
Album released 24 October 2011 on Monotreme Records on CD, digital and limited vinyl (250 copies, double gatefold 180 gm on white vinyl with black splatter – includes a free CD of the album plus a numbered, hand-printed A5 lino cut made by the band).
Navi Esparza
Jake Renn
