Ben Strebel makes a stunning return to music videos with his wonderful video for Skrillex, Starrah and Four Tet’s new track Butterflies - an impressionistic portrait on the impact of a year of Covid crisis upon a generation, which builds to a simply transcendent climax.

With some hugely talented collaborators, including choreographer Holly Blakey, DoP Ben Todd, and the VFX team at Electric Theatre Collective, Strebel channels the frustrations of a generation of youth, whose relationships and opportunies have all been curtailed by the successive lockdowns, into a very contemporary work of visual art.

On a London estate, an edgy teenager is a ball of energy as they sit in their room, and when a group of youths gather, the group immediately combine to performing Blakey's intricate, physically demanding choreography. Sheets float in the air, at the Chinese takeaway the youths also play ghosts, covered in sheets - and then the path from gritty reality to heightened sensibility spins into outright fantasy, all within the same concrete world.

The climax of the video is wonderful - and that is partly because you do not see it coming. The kids have now become real ghosts, soaring into the air above the concrete, freed to cavort to the strains of this epic electronic collaboration between Sonny John Moore (aka Skrillex), Keiran Hebden (Four Tet), and Brittany Talia Hazzard (Starrah). This is a brilliantly conceived ballet - created with an ingenious execution of VFX work and camera movement.  

Strebel has created a wonderful visual for Butterflies, the result of not only his own skill and vision, but the ambition and support of Skrillex. The artist and director had been talking for a long time about working together, and Skrillex took a hands-on approach throughout the process, sanctioning the lengthy period in post production required to make it happen.

It was well worth the wait.