At one point in Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 psychedelic classic The Holy Mountain, a narrator gravely intones, "The tarot will teach you how to create a soul." And in the music video for Timber Timbre's "Grifting," premiering today on The FADER, tarot cards have souls of their own. Director Elenor Kopka animates a strange and smoky tarot session that comes to life, and the cards have brought bad omens with them. The grave atmosphere is ideal for the track: Taylor Kirk's voice ascends anxiously, like it's walking up one of Escher's staircases, going up and up before moving onto a different plain, urged on by the song's steely, funky organ.
Over email, Kopka recalled the images that first came to her mind when she first listened to the song. "'Grifting' instantly made me think of a swampy seaside village, set somewhere in the 1980s, and a group of people meeting up for a shady basement match of poker. Later on I got very inspired by tarot imagery and the aesthetics of fortune telling and tried to construct a game packed with that sort of occult symbolism. The video ended up becoming an obscure card game session that brings back unwanted memories.“ Timber Timbre's Taylor Kirk was happy with the results: "I don't think I can even sing the song now without conjuring these images," he wrote.
Timber Timbre's new album Sincerely, Future Pollution will be out Friday, April 7 via City Slang.
Thumbnail photo via management