David Knight - 18th July 2017

Crowns & Owls, in their first music video for ages, have returned with an unsettling curiosity for Hercules & Love Affair's Omnion.

A lone robed figure repeatedly walks up a staircase, on a pilgrimage in which she encounters different scenarios involving other pilgrims - and then finally passes through a watery barrier to be entirely transformed.

Crowns & Owls - that's Rory Martinez, Tom Harrison and James Alexander Adair - explain the ideas about the video below. And with its spiritual, quasi-religious overtones, this is absorbing work. It's also distinguished by excellent minimalist-theatrical production design, by James Hamilton at Made London and Max Lincoln, rarely found in music videos these days.

CROWN & OWLS:

"The Omnion video is an exploration of the nuances of gender and sexuality. A story of rebirth, the video follows a lone figure in red on an ascending pilgrimage up a seemingly infinite stair. Perspective play, scale and negative space is used to reflect the complexity of identity.

"Under dappled light our character is guided by descending children; serenely vacant and dripping with water. The stairs open to small rooms, each one a dreamlike homage to the childhood experiences of Andy Butler. 

"The closing sequence shows the woman arriving at the summit of the stairs, where a surreal pool cleanses her of the anxieties of adulthood, rebirthing her as a little boy, blessing her with blissful juvenile nativity."