Before Tigers

Sometime around 2015, I started premiering music videos on Headphone Commute [well, actually, my very first official premiere was of my dearly missed friend, Marcus Fjellström, for his Dance Music 3 back in 2013]. And this unique medium with which musicians communicate their story [and, let’s admit, a marketing vehicle as well] has not let up since then. By my count, I have had the honour of the exclusive premiere of a total of 95 videos on this site to date, and I’ve got three more for you just this week alone! So yeah, I guess a hundred is around the corner. But, honestly, more than just a gimmick to promote their latest track [although, I do get a ton of pitches like that, which I always politely decline], the music video has raised the bar for most musicians. Thus, putting out an album doesn’t stop at that. Working with a film director, a choreographer, a dancer, and a slew of rarely credited assistants to put together a project full of innumerable complexities, tight scheduling, and countless extra editing hours is a feat of its own (believe me, I’ve tried it myself) – so it’s important to recognize and appreciate this special arrangement of creative talent that comes together to take their message to another level. And although I could spend this time writing about his album for 79Ancestors, I’d like to borrow your attention for this video instead.

A few more words of introduction to this project. First, I want to remind you of this cross-disciplinary label on which we’ve witnessed Deru‘s Torn In Two (2018), which is “focused on the production of highly personal objects and experiences, designed by artists working at the intersection of music composition, performance, cinema, and code“. I think it’s then self-explanatory why the Belgian producer, Laurent Delforge, has selected 79A for his Before Tigers project. His debut album, titled Missing My Future, is an incredibly textured, highly polished cinematic ‘scape of advanced sound design and precision-triggered production. The opener, “Ravages” is powerful enough to make your necks snap, but it doesn’t stop there. Throughout the six tracks of the record, Delforge channels “an elusive mood of afterlife software, ghosts in the machine, and labyrinthine beat experiments for lives yet unlived, as intricate as they are intimate.” Samples of vocals, whispers and ASMR inducing lisps glitch and swirl in this post-everything “quest for humility and empathy” in sound.

Missing My Future was originally composed for Roberto Olivan’s contemporary dance piece “Cuculand Souvenir”. For the video, Delforge worked with Tina Afiyan-Breiova to shoot a mesmerizing landscape, movement and light – a perfect trio of artistic particles to his already powerful palette. The album is available as digital as well as on a transparent 12″ vinyl. Mastered by the ever-prolific never-resting sonic alchemist, Rafael Anton Irisarri.