"We wanted to make a film that celebrates two dancers from Johannesburg. As well as that feeling of being young and creating your own universe within your environment and being able to express yourself in any shape or form."
Kristin Lee Moolman and Ib Kamara, i-D
The effortless androgyny showcased in the music video for Swedish electronic music band's "Strobe Light" has been lauded for challenging the rigid gender norms of South Africa - while also paying homage to the band's especially devoted fanbase in the country. Lead vocalist Yukima Nagano also pointed out that the band's fourth and fifth albums were inspired by South African house music (courtesy of drummer Erik Bodin, who is married to a South African), while noting that their musical output has a unique resonance with the audience they have cultivated in the country: "The crowd reaction there always catches us off guard. Somehow we feel like our music is truly understood there".
The song's sleek blend of sensual '80s R&B and futuristic synths works exceptionally well with the dancers' fluid and assured movements in their silky cloaks and wedding veils. Nagano's sultry and soulful vocals calmly take in an immersive and transformative experience in the club, using parataxis to evoke a rarified state of mind that lies in between space and time: 'Strobe light/ Ultraviolet blue/ Eyes are deep/ Ultraviolet you'. Nagano's lyrics initially couch the mental and physical journeys that take place on the dancefloor in spiritual, metaphysical and religious imagery, before an interlude introduces a more primal, ancient, tribal and pagan set of descriptors:
'Glowing in the parkPearly whites in the darkThrow a witch into a fire'Cause the fire, we backGlowing in the darkPearly whites in the parkThrow a witch into a fire'Cause the fire, we burn'
Lyrics:
