This new live video from RVA indie pop quartet My Darling Fury is an amazing musical and visual document. Produced during a two-hour window of time at Fulton Hill Studios, where the band practices, it captures a new song that was originally written as a reward for My Darling Fury’s Kickstarter campaign to fund their debut album.
This new live video from RVA indie pop quartet My Darling Fury is an amazing musical and visual document. Produced during a two-hour window of time at Fulton Hill Studios, where the band practices, it captures a new song that was originally written as a reward for My Darling Fury’s Kickstarter campaign to fund their debut album. The band “had a pledge reward category that allowed the backer to choose a topic for a song,” bassist Todd Matthews told The Vinyl District.
Reward recipient Grant Yelverton chose “flight, any meaning” as his topic, and in response, the band put together “Over, Under,” which does indeed evoke flight with its spaced-out arrangement. Particularly towards the beginning of the song, most of the instruments are silent for at least some of each individual measure. Guitarist Clark Fraley throws in the occasional lead, and singer Danny Reyes makes intermittent use of his synth, but most of the song’s first two minutes is driven by Matthews’ bass part, with drummer Joel Hollister playing a skeletal drum part on a stripped-down kit featuring only a bass drum and two cymbals. With this arrangement in place, it is Reyes’ voice that’s left to carry the lion’s share of the song’s early moments. The chorus swells toward a fuller sound, but towards the end of the song, things grow even more quiet, breaking down to percussion as Reyes layers his voice through the use of a loop effect, eventually backing himself with looped three-part harmonies as he sings a nimble, soaring final verse. The song plays to the strengths of the group and takes their music to a new level of intense, hypnotic beauty.
The black-and-white video for the clip is simultaneously as stripped-down and full of atmospheric grandeur as the song itself. Shot by five friends of the band on video cameras and smartphones, it offers a detailed look at the moment-by-moment creation of this deceptively detailed and intricate song. As projections by The Awesome View play on the wall behind the band, the members dance, clap, and perform with an infectious joy. The auditorium of Fulton Hill Studios, which was originally built a century ago to serve as a school, makes for an evocative backdrop, and as Matthews points out, “the extremely high ceilings and huge acoustic sound in this airy auditorium was a perfect match for a live performance of ‘Over, Under.'” So enjoy the performance captured in this video, then head out to The Camel next Wednesday, May 28, to catch My Darling Fury performing live and in person as part of RVA Playlist’s Fourth Birthday Celebration. The bill will also feature The Trillions and Vexxine, and admission is free! For more info, click here.
By Andrew Necci
