Emily Kempf – “Dynamite” (video) (Premiere)

When a song is anachronistic, it’s best to make its visual accompaniment equally difficult to pigeonhole to a particular era. That’s the approach with the video for Emily Kempf’s “Dynamite”, for the tune itself doesn’t sound as though it is either historic- or futuristic-leaning, but rather like it’s emanating from a parallel timeline altogether.

“Dynamite” is an avant-garde baroque dream pop number with a dash of gypsy elements; its nebulous music has a Tim Buckley-meets-Björk flavor. Kempf’s haunting bellow is the star amid minor piano chords, hammered on and resonating as though played in a dusty mausoleum. As digital effects twinkle in the background, the song abruptly transitions to a comparatively upbeat, galloping keyboard melody.

The video replicates that out-of-time feel: hazy with the somewhat unsettling quality of a primitive VHS recording, the type you see in late-night movies airing on public access television. Through it all, Kempf dons a variety of vivid outfits, menacingly staring down the camera as she sings or rides a black horse through the streets of Hamtramck, Michigan.

Kempf resides in Chicago, where she also plays in the lo-fi, grunge-esque girl-group Lala Lala. “Dynamite” hails from her 2014 solo EP Loss Waves. The video was created and produced by Detroit-based filmmaking duo Andrew Miller and Jamin Townsley, collectively known as the Right Brothers.

Kempf and Miller took a few minutes to answer some questions about their collaboration and the comical ordeal that went into making the video.

Tell me about how you two connected and planted the seeds for the “Dynamite” video.

Andrew Miller: Two years ago, I went to the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck to see a Doc Waffles show and Emily’s band, Whitegold, was touring through and was the opener. They put on an incredible show. Emily had bright green hair and I briefly talked with her after they played and asked her if she wanted to collaborate on a video. Six months later, she e-mailed me saying she was coming through Detroit. We hung out that weekend, and she left me a bunch of stuff, like her shirts and buttons she was making, and also her new CD. “Dynamite” was the first track and I knew I had to make that video.

Emily Kempf: I was on my first ever solo tour, and Detroit was the first stop of the trip. I had never been on a tour all by myself and was doing it as an exercise in walking through the fear of being alone. After hanging out with Andy all night, it was clear to me that we would make great stuff together. We had similar spirits and drives and both of us were led by our intuitions and grounded in strong vision. We both believed in our art and were free enough to not try to control it, but rather guide it as it flowed through us.

How’d you go about procuring a horse for Emily to ride in such an urban setting?

AM: We would text ideas back and forth and one day I got, “I want to ride a horse.” I fucking love horses; when I was a kid I’d pretend my bike was a horse and I love westerns and horse racing. Love them. But where the hell am I going to find a horse in Detroit?

EK: Yeah! The horse thing, man, Andy was like, “Em, I got a horse” one day, and I was like “What?” It was clear magic was happening. I grew up riding and missed it so much, and horses are fucking majestic! What a perfect animal to shoot for a vid.

AM: My brother was dating a girl at the time and had mentioned that she rode horses and had a connect into that world. Turns out she owned a horse named Clyde who is housed up in Southfield. I talked with her about getting Clyde down to Detroit for a day to film and she was all about it. Em and I now had the base for this video — she will be riding horse but that’s all we knew.

EK: I was so excited and nervous; I hadn’t ridden a horse in like 15 years. I figured I’d probably be fine, and I’d just have to figure it the fuck out when I got there.

AM: I had also made contact with the Motor City Horsemen, a horse-riding group that often rides all around Detroit. They were going to come through for the shoot, too.

EK: Yah Andy texted me that there would be more horses, that I would be flanked by two other horsemen, and I was just floored by how cool this project was unfolding. Three horses in the streets of Detroit, that’s magic.

How’d you organize the video with you living a fairly significant distance apart?

AM: We scheduled a weekend when Emily was moving from Atlanta to Chicago and she was going to swing through Detroit to shoot. She said she had some wild wardrobe options.

EK: I have a knack with costuming and styling. My first band was a 12-person performance art group mixing music with elements of theatre and audience participation; lots of set design, wigs, props, etc. Also, I was a visual and film artist before I became a musician so I had strong foundation in visual aesthetic.

AM: But the Thursday before the shoot everything fell apart. The guys from Motor City Horsemen were no longer responding to me and then I got a call from Clyde’s owner. She was in a panic saying, “Clyde needs to move tonight. He’s getting kicked out of the barn he’s staying in. We need to bring him out to Grand Blanc.” So then I had no horses at all and Emily was coming in that night. If Clyde goes all the way out to fucking Grand Blanc, there’s no way to get him downtown on Saturday to film.

That’s when I started to see the magic of the supermagical. I called my neighbor and artist Kate Daughdrill — she runs Burnside Farm which is at the end of our block on the east side of Detroit in Banglatown. I believe the conversation went like this. “Hey Kate how are you? “Good man what’s up, brother?” ”Kate are you interested in having an experience this weekend?” “Yeah.” “Great, can I keep a horse in your backyard, just for a few days?” “Yeah, I’m down but we have to check with Blaksmith.” (Brent “Blak” Smith of Passalacqua rents the apartment above Kate.) Blaksmith was way down but as an extra incentive, I promised we would film the horse for a scene for the Passalacqua video we were working on ‘The Baptism”. Then I told Kate we’d be there with a horse at midnight.

EK: What I like about this part of the story is that Andy didn’t give up, and didn’t worry about rules. He just tried to fix the problems as they arose and the universe met him more than halfway, and solutions appeared.

Must have been a relief when the horse actually arrived.

AM: I was so fucking excited when I heard that diesel pulling around the corner on Burnside. We backed out a huge beautiful black horse and walked him around the block a little. My other neighbors Jen David and Jeffrey Thomas came out like, “OK, there’s a horse on Burnside; when can I ride it?” The block was electric. Em came through an hour later with her spray painted van and garbage bags full of clothes.

EK: I showed up with my van, which was full of literally everything I owned, as I was moving to Chicago that week (having been on an almost year-long perma-tour with two of my bands, Whitegold and Xxxprsnxxx) and Andy was like giddy with excitement about the vid. And yes, the block was electric! We immediately went to see Clyde, It was really dark out and the light of the moon was the only illumination, and there was this gorgeous dark horse, just totally hanging out in a backyard.

PM: Sounds like quite a labor. How did the actual shoot go once the ducks were in a row?

AM: Early the next day, me and Em got coffee and immediately started filming in different costumes performing the song all over Hamtramck and Detroit.

EK: It was like shoot the scene, drive home, go change, OK drive to next location, shoot, OK, change again, shoot another, et cetera, on and on. So much fun and fast. Andy had all the locations picked out, and I showed up with all my looks and characters ready to go.

AM: Turns out that was also the day the Afterhouse project started, which is turning an old burned down house into a green house on Burnside. So there was a huge crew of people tearing a house down while a horse was chilling in the backyard next door.

Ended up hearing from the Motor City Horsmen and we went out and shot all the horse scenes Saturday evening down around the Eastern Market/St. Aubin area. Me and Jamin were filming horses running out of the back of a Suburban. Childhood me would have been so proud.

EK: Oh my god, it was so amazing. They were crouched in the back of an SUV, and I was riding behind the car flanked by two other riders and we were just riding in the streets! Cars were around us and people were looking at us and we were just galloping down the road looking sick. I was trying to look stoic and cool, but I kept laughing and smiling because I was having so much fun. I love horses so much, and being able to ride with others, in the streets, was so freeing and beautiful. It was super challenging, too, because I had to sing the song in double time (so it could be put to slow motion later), as I was trying to keep up with the car, and stay in the shot, while steering the horse, while keeping the other two horses near, while remembering the words to the song, while trying to not fall off or get hit by cars as we cantered along.

AM: It was easily one of the best weekends of the summer. It was bittersweet when Em left Sunday morning for Chicago. It had been such an electric whirlwind experience. I imagine that’s how it always is while working with an artist like Emily Kempf. She’s a crazy, beautiful genius, I’m really thankful our paths crossed that night at New Dodge, and I’m so proud of the video we made together. I can’t wait to do it again.

EK: I feel the same for Andy. He’s special and talented and we work well together. And yeah, can’t wait for the next one. Already started texting ideas; we think maybe water skiing and fast boats might be involved.