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music
Flaunt Premiere | Alison Sudol "MOON"

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Alison Sudol lives the American media dream, participating in crafts from singing and songwriting to acting. She is perhaps best known for her role in the _Fantastic Beasts_ film series, and is better known musically under her moniker, A Fine Frenzy. However, Sudol is versatile in her craft, the child of two Seattle-based dramatic arts teachers. Her take on the arts reaches far and wide, showcased here through her new song and music video for “MOON.” Sudol both wrote the song and directed the video, capturing the essence of her music through creative directing pursuits. The clip shows Sudol traversing what we initially think is alien terrain before ending up walking urban streets and attempting to find a connection in an aquarium. The light shifts as she finally finds home in the embrace of a room filled with a diverse cast of people taking off her space suit and placing her into bed. The elegantly shot video contrasts the depth of isolation while presenting a warm and dreamy sensation of contentment. This winter sees her releasing new music after nearly 6 years, perfect timing for the highly anticipated sequel to _Fantastic Beasts_ out in November. Flaunt had a chance to talk with Alison about her cinematic undertaking. * * * **You have an absolutely wonderful cohesive way of mixing music with your visuals. Who have you been collaborating with on the videos?**  Thank you, that’s so kind of you to say.  Music to me is such a visual medium- when I’m writing, I can picture the landscape of the sounds, the colors, the textures, even if it’s abstract, so the video is always really important to me. However, there’s also a kind of magic of allowing the video to be it’s own thing and take its own natural course, and also I kind of have to, because most of the images in my mind are impossible to nail down. I’ve learned that they’re meant to be fleeting, to be left to the imagination, and that the video needs, to a certain degree, to be something else to let those other things breathe. I’ve always preferred working with friends, or people who feel like we’re going to be friends when we meet. The videos we’ve made thus far have been really small productions so we can stay light on our feet. Moon was largely just four of us- Sam, Adrienne, Kathryn and I, running all over Southern California and Vancouver with a camera, duct tape, a flashlight with a pink gel taped to it and me attempting to direct in a space helmet. The women at the end are all women who have been hugely important in my life- even my 93 year old grandmother was there. It was a powerful moment, kneeling in front of her and looking her in the eye for ages, woman to woman… I don’t know when else I ever would have had the opportunity to do that.  **How important is nature to you? Your vocals and production reflect a naturalistic take on music.** I’m always trying to find ways to feel closer to nature. I feel a deep longing for untamed spaces, for deep quiet, for fresh air and stars and vistas and ocean. I really struggle with feeling disconnected from it in my daily life, living in a city, riding the subway, surrounded by concrete and cars and noise. It’s something I grapple with, since fundamentally I know I couldn’t actually live somewhere completely immersed in nature, I’d go nuts, I need people, need the warmth of electric lights and voices, need structure and the comforts of living in the modern world. A song without some nod to nature to me is like a street with no trees. But I also love synths and weird sounds that you’re never going to make with a gourd. It’s a balance, I guess.   **Your videos have presented abstract takes on existence and this strong alien element. Is it a reflection of a sense of isolation?**  Definitely. I was going through an incredibly tumultuous period of my life, struggling with  heavy, undiagnosed depression and anxiety. It was the first time I really started to peer into the overwhelming sense of loneliness I had struggled with for so long, which went beyond the desire to connect with another person and into something much deeper and older. We tried to find ways of exploring that feeling visually- the seeking of something which you can’t quite name, the inexplicable pull towards warmth, connection, femininity, intuition, and whatever that mystical thing is that’s bigger than all of us.  **What has been your strongest influence both musically and aesthetically?** There’s this beautiful, surreal feeling I get when wild nature and the human hand intersect, where art feels harmonic with nature, yet alien, like it’s from some other planet entirely. It feels inexplicably nostalgic, makes my heart hum. It’s hot under the surface and cool to the touch. It’s hard to explain, but I get it from Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, Cy Twombly, from Rothko and James Turrell, from Neutra and Eames, from Air and Brian Eno, from Tokyo at night and the airplane when everyone is asleep and I have headphones on… it’s countless other moments that happen, seemingly at random, that are so breathtaking and weird, they make everything seem like it’s happening on purpose. I want to make music that feels like that, which feels almost impossible when I’m in it. But I guess I’m also influenced by my limitations. They push me to be more creative, to work with what I have, to dig deeper. **Are there certain films that have inspired your cinematic style?**  Yes! Definitely. Lost in Translation, The Life Aquatic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all blew my mind when I was younger and have stuck with me ever since. I love the feel of older films like The Graduate and Harold and Maude, those soundtracks were epic. I love The Never-ending Story, just saw it again recently and it made me sob with joy. And then there’s the end of Contact…  **What is your background in piano, and what other instruments would you like to explore?** One of the best things about working with Ali Chant is that he encouraged me to play instruments which I barely even knew how to turn on. I got obsessed with this incredible synth called the Variophon- it’s an electronic wind instrument with a sax sound that I wanted to put on everything. It dripped spit from valve into my lap when I played it too aggressively. Still, I would like to play more of it, as well as dive deeper into the world of synths. I’m also trying to get better at guitar. Especially since it does not drip spit into my lap.  * * * * * * Photos by Adrienne Butcher