Copenhagen based Folk-noir artist Dune Messiah unveils their new single “Silence and Surrender”, showcased in a music video with elements that resemble some of the romantic David Lynch inspired scenography meets the sleazy facets oozing from some of Nick Cave’s most pulp and lurid work.
“Silence and Surrender” envisions a stylized alternative take on the folk-genre; acoustic guitars and violins violently grinding upon a frantically mechanic drum machine beat. The song ends with a heartbreaking violin solo played by Nils Gröndahl. The music video star Dune Messiah mastermind Magnus Westergaard playing a loser character, who seems unable to cope with normal human emotions.
During the video we see our protagonist desperately trying to seduce women at night throughout Copenhagen, with his despaired stumbling and falling. The surreal scenes that transpire within a jealousy-drama between him and two other characters (played by Danish actress Rosalinde Mynster and Mathias Broe).
There are heavy homoerotic and sexual connotations in the video, as Magnus Westergaard explains:
“We wished in the video to catch the ironic and exaggerated aesthetics in the song and the lyrics.
The song is about a person showing misogyny in his choice of words towards a woman. There are a lot of sexual frustration, bitterness and jealousy in the lyrics throughout the whole song, that we thought could be interesting to somehow project onto the movie format. There is a certain portrait of a character in the song, and therefore we wished to also show that character in what we hope is a stylized and exaggerated theatrical setting.”
The music video is directed by Lisa Jespersen, who graduated as director from the National Film School of Denmark. She talks about working on the music video:
“When we started developing the video, we talked about what space you find yourself in when you are having a sexual fantasy. We agreed that it was a kind of undefinable universe, which we then tried to recreate in the video. For me personally it was important that the video itself should be interpreted as being in between pretentious seriousness and obvious humoristic irony”.
For live concerts, Dune Messiah consists of lead singer and acoustic guitar player Magnus Westergaard, Lisa Jespersen on keyboards, guitar player Andreas Bengtsen, and a Roland drum machine. Since Westergaard put out his debut-EP in 2015, Dune Messiah has toured Europe several times, supporting prominent artists in the goth and neo-folk and scenes such as King Dude, Drab Majesty, Of the Wand and the Moon, Lust for Youth, throughout many different countries such as England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.
Now, Dune Messiah has just signed with the booking agency Swamp Booking, and a solo tour following the album release is under way. (see dates below).
Dune Messiah is Magnus Westergaard. The release of his second album Moments of Bliss is slated for March 29th, through French label Third Coming Records (who also releases Danish bands like Pardans and The Love Coffin) and German label Aufnahme + Wiedergabe.
Tour dates:
https://dunemessiah.bandcamp.com/album/moments-of-bliss-lp
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