Sean Nicholas Savage
Montreal’s Sean Nicholas Savage; photographed by Molly Nilsson.
Montreal artist Sean Nicholas Savage this week presented the Angus Borsos video for “Romeo” found off his album Other Death via Arbutus Records that provides a host of cinematic lead-ins that sets up the stage as if you were watching a brand new art house flick. Borsos combines a combination of classic ad fare to cozy up next to the timeless coos & croons & keyboard cast expressions. Utilizizing a fleet of styles and visual formats; Angus makes SNS’s “Romeo” portrayal more abstract than the original Shakespearean tragic hero.
Director Angus Borsos said this of the video:
Of all the oddities to be found on Other Death—”Romeo”, in my opinion, is its greatest hit. It’s a a slow diffusion of indistinguishable sentiment, a whale call…something of a seismic anagram, part horizontal—part diagonal. I tried to mirror the feeling it gave me by visually representing it in a strong array of blurbs and announcements—layers that lure you into the music on different horizons—soothing temporal zones, condensed evocative instances, and dispatches of cinematic devices strung together in such a way that they might be effective in any order—a fuzzy disruption to linear experience. What is it? I don’t know exactly…
Sean Nicholas Savage chatted with us over long-distance cables with the following interview talking about the new music video, and working with Agor from Blue Hawaii, Ramona Gonzalez (aka Nite Jewel), TOPS’ Jane Penny & David Carriere, and more:
What sorts of thoughts & bliss/life and death considerations informed Other Death?
Agor and I went to the beach almost every morning to stare at the waves. Ssometimes it was a bit smoggy when we’d go for a walk, & it looked like walkin’ on the sands of time.
I’m not afraid of death, not spiritually, I don’t believe in the ‘end of the world’,
or the end of my life, nothing ever really dies, it just gets all fucked up n kickflips, n shove its.
Tell us about how contributions from Doldrums, Blue Hawaii, Nite Jewel, and TOPS impacted the record.
Airick came down and we like sat around in this empty living room mindlessly jamming,
and that’s one of my favorite memories of the record, ’cause that’s just what I was hoping for—freedom.
Then I longed for more hits, so Agor (of Blue Hawaii, the producer of DEATH) remixed this demo I had done with Ramona (Nite Jewel) the year before, she had played all the music on that, and sung, and then when we were like done the record, but we squeezed on “Don’t B Sad” with Tops back in Montreal, still greedy.
Describe for us the making of the “Romeo” video, and how Angus Borso’s visualization affected your song for you.
I think it was very late, as it often is with me n’ Angus. We were staying at his brothers place, where we did the rat video…I love the ‘ad’ feeling, ’cause I used to love when we’d tape movies in the 90s and then you’d re-watch all the old shampoo adds etc years after. It’s mostly a Borsos creation, he just used me a little bit, but I do love the “Romeo” video and how it turned out.
What else have you been eagerly working on/and/or excited about lately?
I’ve been seeing somebody I really adore! And recording new tunes, and I got some fun new clothes, and still getting pretty tipsy on the regular, but less when I can, and I started running to save my health somehow, but it’s just given me more energy to destroy myself ha ha.
What’s good and awesome happening right now in Montreal?
First of all, the night life in Montreal is electric, absolutely electric! And then when you’re all burned down and you can’t take the heat? You’ve got friends on every corner, just hanging out, chillin’, sometimes eating.
Sean Nicholas Savage’s album Other Death is available now from Arbutus Records.
