Foxtails Brigade – “Far Away and Long Ago” (video) (premiere)

In celebration of Oakland, California’s independent music scene OIM Records released OIM: Vol. 1, a compilation featuring 13 of the area’s finest, not to mention underrated artists. Chamber pop band Foxtails Brigade contributed the haunting, Jon Brion-meets-cabaret tune “Far Away and Long Ago”, and now have released a stunning new video for the track, which we’re premiering at PopMatters. Shot on a single take, the effect is fluid, dreamlike, and only enhances the song’s unsettling feeling.

“Shortly after hearing a near-final mix of [the song] I visited the mansion you see in the video,” says director and Foxtails Brigade percussionist Dominic Mercurio. “I explored these tangibly strange rooms with the sounds and feelings of the song still freshly swimming in my mind. The mansion was beautiful, yet on closer inspection, falling apart at the seams. Its own beauty rotting away from within. It was precisely how one might feel when constructing a façade for the people around you. We often default to appearing externally light while struggling with an internal dark. This abstracted visual narrative explores a cautionary tale of the results of resisting externalizing the internal.

“Being a musician as well as a filmmaker, it was of upmost importance that beyond this being a standalone narrative piece that it also was a direct visual adaptation of the music. The ultimate goal being that after watching it you’re unsure what came first – the visuals or the music.”

OIM: Vol. 1 is out now. Stream and purchase it via Bandcamp.