And now, for your daily aux cord strangulation fix, here’s Swedish Indie-Pop artist Esther Vallee’s “Numbers.” The uptempo track, originally released at the end of October via Warner Music Sweden, was treated to a playful-yet-haunting visual narrative crafted by Joakim Carlsson and Sverre Wegge Grundhus of Good Company NYC. The song is about holding in secrets, and the guilty ramifications of repression.
Vallee said via e-mail that she desired to take that concept and flip it on its head for a video that’s a “contrast of what everyone is expecting me to do.” The visual showcases a woman at dinner (with someone else?’), a man watching porn, and another doing the deed – with a blowup doll. It goes full slasher flick toward the middle, with some grim results offset by the playful nature of her actions.
“The script is very dark but still with a touch of humour,” Vallee says. “That’s what I love about it. And still the story is written about the lyrics in the song but with the twist. I wanna show the secrets we have, the real truth about dark inner thoughts that we don’t wanna reveal because we’re ashamed. In the video I’m kind of the devil in their minds who tells them ‘your secret will be safe with me.’ I’m the one who helps them to mask their forbidden wishes and dreams, by killing them.”
