A young woman pours the ashes of her beloved late mother into her running shoes and leaves her suburban home - wielding a pole vaulter's pole - in a race against time...

Hard Drive Gold, the latest release ahead of alt-J's fourth album The Dream (out on Feb 11th) has a video that follows in the tradition of the band's consistently excellent track record in visuals - particularly those that put a different spin on dramatic suspense. In this case, it comes from a new directing duo, consisting of an alt-J bandmember and his partner: Newman-Wallace are the band's singer and guitarist Joe Newman, and choreographer Darcy Wallace.   

We follow the young woman - played by Ellie McCartney - as she drags the pole from her garage, and then pounds through nearly empty suburban streets with it, as if she is on the longest-ever pole vaulter's run-up. This striking image is made even more mysterious by the context - the imminence of a nuclear attack and, as a result, the mostly panic-stricken behaviour of her neighbours.

Finally she reaches her destination - but can she complete her leap before the missiles strike?

Newman-Wallace's highly cinematic directing debut was shot by Krzysztof Trojnar, and executive produced by Andrew Law, longtime commissioner of alt-J's videos, now head of music and special projects at Biscuit Filmworks.

"It was a great privilege to work with Joe and Darcy on their debut piece of filmmaking,which I think is a brilliant music video that stands tall next to the rest of the band's enviable canon of work," says Law. "Biscuit and alt-J have worked very successfully together in the past, and we were thrilled to build on that relationship with Hard Drive Gold. Newman-Wallace has a very bright filmmaking future, and we’re all very excited about what happens next.”