The Visions of Archy

Tall skyscrapers, oversized suits, large bodies of water? If it’s not a 1950s Hollywood crime film, then it’s probably a King Krule music video.

It’s commonplace for artists to change the visual style and aesthetics within their music videos and  overall image as a musical entity to befit the sound of the record. Look to acts like Arctic Monkeys during their most recent era, Fellini visuals with western inspired shots, walking in slow motion across a corner of a car park type of situation being a world away from the visual era of, let’s say Humbug or matter fact, any era before. 

Popular music invites this constant reinvention, which puts King Krule outside of this norm and despite the evolving sounds that span across his albums, across his visual works, the same rules and characters apply.

The visuals are brought through a mixture of lo-fi aesthetics or high production, the images presented more or less stay the same over the years, with nuances that come with getting older. The stories being told here subvert a shiny portrayal of the city that sways out of red double decker buses and red telephone boxes, neglecting the vast night life quarters and enters through the undersides, on the outskirts the obscured glimpses of central buildings,  a juxtaposition where the rich areas eat at the narrowly decreasing poorer, working-class communities.

This isn’t set out to make complete sense of the non-descript green faces that come up again but what their re-appearance means and what they represent to Krule and the place he is depicting. We’ll take a look through a selection of music videos from the past ten years to see of what stands, what it says, and what remains.

Easy Easy

One of his early works, the video can be surmised to a series of shots constituting of dogs, meandering walks with friends and south London train-lines . The seed to the world his music videos inhabit , future shots will be carried into the future and reimagined, doused in more history or perhaps something so simple to a change in colour.

It’s a private curated window into a personal London, the ghoulish characters that appear half alive, walking in dark coloured suits. Here is a sight into what sits behind the skyscraper. A London like this only being known within the country due to the Notting Hill high street and three terraced houses of North West London roads that were marketed as the city’s face in 90s rom coms. Another world to the scrappier graffiti murals behind Overground trainlines. Of course, the popularity of shows like Top Boy in recent years has seen this one-sided portrayal diminish and offer an insight but at the time the video was released (2013) is a subtle addition to the canon of London’s portrayal in the media, a truer London at that.

The video perfectly captures the life of being underage in London, with everything on your doorstep but the scope of it reduced to legality, resulting in time spent par taking in night walks with friends through unpopulated trails.

Trips to the local off license sat at the top of building, Krule is laying down his youth trails and the world to him at that time.

Rock Bottom

“Wanderer of the Sea”, the romantic painting by Caspar David Friedrich, sees a figure standing in front of a sea of fog, momentarily in deep thought and self-reflection whilst at some type of mercy at the natural beauty of what stands ahead. The limited green spaces and access to big bays of nature in comparison to places outside of metropolis means that this image, re-created in a modern-day context , perhaps does not hold as much power, standing by the bank of the Thames and reflecting at its murky waters.

The prevailing image of the music video for “Rock Bottom” sees King Krule stood in the middle of some edge, a contrast to the darkly lit kitchens and empty bars where most of the music video takes place. At the waterside, he stumbles through as a sole figure, the only person who can get themselves out of this place

The overwhelming depletion and visual depiction of reaching your whit’s end turns to surrealism involving matron figures dishing out screw soup, and Krule performing to a despondent crowd (ghoulish in appearance) that sleep and read newspapers in the face of Krule performing on stage, another component to the misery at hand.

The grave site promenades leads to walking through the underpass, interceded by sudden violence, the relentlessness experienced thus far is only pushed further down into this pit. Nowhere is he safe from the hard times at hand, beaten down by the ominous figures in suits that hold briefcases and act as something bigger than him that can’t be defeated. The emotional plane of dejection and overall tone to the song juxtaposes the depletion, the slight optimism offered as Krule looks to a toy ship on the table, the novelty item also represents a small hope potentially as he stands at the sea edge waiting for something to arrive, looking out for something better.

Czech One

The smokiness and the unknown that lurks comes to full fruition with the video for “Czech One”, takes form in surrealism, a tool Krule heavily opts for. We’re introduced to  him dressed sharply in a brown tailored suit before he takes flight and is spotlighted amongst the other passengers on the plane, sat next to a window. The video is shrouded in mystery, in regards to the destination of the flight, the eye patch as he wistfully sings “can’t even look her in the eye”,  a tongue and cheek portrayal of a admiration towards another person so strong perhaps. 

A sequence contains flashes of the city that finally give us a sense of place again, home, despite the supposed distance insinuated by impromptu aircraft, we’re not as far from Krule’s home as thought, that or the dreaming of a return to it

Walks through as quite incongruent amongst the night streets of central where he rambles through like an alien, from his perspective, being from a part of town where you are forever travelling (no tubes run through South) is reflective of the time spent thinking on commutes, long journeys that when disseminates, entry into real life, main streets

A door opens and he is back on earth where he took off, where we enter French New Wave territory, think Jean Luc Godard, a mysterious woman ready to light his cigarette is potentially the woman in question within the lyrics, causing these ailments within the main character.

Together now, the camera zooms past them and looks in on a plane in the background, representative of coming out of a contemplative state and more or less returning to reality.

Alone Omen 3 

Krule’s 2020 album felt like a significant chapter. A burgeoning sense of optimism, entry into fatherhood brings about a hopeful sound best showcased in the track “Alone Omen 3”, where Krule acts as a motivational speaker, amongst the mass collection of bodies that surround him that seem to be waiting. This image put across holds resemblance to the sight of people gathered at a crossing, capturing the small pauses in an ever-moving city. The sudden dispersal rids of this idea however, now placed at a riverbank instead, a return to large bodies of water.

He sits, assuredly nodding to the camera as his friends stand idly behind him followed with a wide shot of him walking by the river bank alone. Regardless of the secure sense of place and message he’s putting out, there is a loneliness and this refrain of “don’t forget you’re not alone,” acts as message for him as well. When he enters the mirrored room, dressed in a beautiful blue suit, nothing externally will change the interpersonal difficulty of having to come to terms with facing yourself and applying this mantra on a personal level as well as repeating it outwards for others.

The repeated refrain is matched with close ups of the faces that built the en masse in quick succession, highlighting the private worlds they occupy, wherever their thoughts are, the depths of the personal, that this brief moment of being together is something in the grand scheme of things, that loneliness can be combatted in small actions and appreciating of what surrounds you.

We’re left with a shot of Krule and his family, walking towards something, moving forward.

If Only It Was Warmth

Directed by Mr Marshall himself, “If Only It Was Warmth” witnesses him at his most pensive, opting for film noir visuals that emphasise the sense of emptiness and the unknown. The video acts as a journey through a void, linked with the vastness and empty space themes laden within the “Space Heavy” album. Imminent danger is treated and shown with blasé responses, from a drone shot takes us through an underpass where a man stands holding fire underneath a glowing moon, to a card game entwined snakes between the moving hands and hidden table where the cards sit.

We experience this journey through what he sees, as he sits on a boat holding a cactus looking to the skies above him perforated with dark clouds, wavy waters that have a stagnant  stop motion quality to them.

The sizing of emotions takes place quite literally, as we enter into a surreal landscape in front of a murky white backdrop where he stands as a giant silhouette, creating his own portals for the emotions that won’t sit within the existing planes.

He stands above the small figures that seem to not seem him, talk amongst themselves and even speaks out to the snake, but ultimately, his intimate woes go unheard. 

Throughout Krule’s videos, there’s no denying the strong sense of place, importance of home and home in other people. The repeated motifs and ideas cease to be boring here, the need to carry on this visual language birthed ten years ago speaks to their prevalence and says that in an ever-changing city faced with gentrification and harder times for people who have known this place their whole lives, amongst the buildings and business that start to leave,  some things still stay the same.