The Seshen Are “Faster Than Before” on New Single (premiere)

The third chapter in a sequence of videos made to accompany selections from Bay Area-based group the Seshen‘s recent release CYAN, “Faster Than Before” bridges the gap between the frenetic energy of “Dive” and the acoustic serenity of “Don’t Answer”. It features non-stop action that, as the emotions on lead singer Lalin St. Juste’s face and in her fluid movements make clear, is as much psychological as it is physical.

We find her character in this latest video “in yet another uncertain realm”, as St. Juste herself says, “running through myself and attempting to break out. It’s an internal world where the reckoning must take place.” Here, St. Juste faces sunshine and flash floods, all while haunted by memories of the myriad human forces in her life. She runs from empty room to empty room, electronic beats rising and falling behind her lilting voice as, onscreen, she seeks the light at the end of an industrial labyrinth. She is on a quest — and an urgent one, at that.

“‘Faster Than Before’ represents the continuous search for who I am beyond the constructs I’ve been conditioned with,” she continues. “Swimming in people-pleasing, compromising myself for the sake of others and circumstance has been detrimental to my psyche and I am creating the path through it.”

At what seems like the end of her path in the video, she finds the figures from her memories and lies down before them. They blindfold her, walk away, and let an incoming ocean tide splash against her, taking us to the end of this leg of her journey. It’s a thrilling new chapter in fittingly moody grayscale, set against breathtaking synth-based sonics. St. Juste engages senses of sight and sound brilliantly.