Working together as PIERA, artists Piera Klein and Micah Plissner are fully convinced that each beat and note matters, and that this means paying incredible attention to how the instruments sound; ensuring the quality of the sound of the drums and bass and giving a relentless focus on rich, evolving, exciting synthesizer tones. The result is an intimate, yet intense textural quality, with Klein’s voice perfectly matching and balancing the instrumentals, and not one thing is out of place. New single, ‘Unraveling’, is a beautiful example of their collaborative efforts, and sounds like the work of the record-making masters that they are.
Both Klein and Plissner have been involved in the world of music, production, composition, and performance in Los Angeles for many years, with Klein is an effortlessly emotive singer capable of expressing sultriness, intelligence, and vulnerability in the same phrase, and Plissner as a musician who can coax great aural beauty and percussive force from his synths, and draws from genres old and new with equal deftness. When he plays his synths in ‘Unraveling’, he grabs hold of the listener, and refuses to let them go, while the chorus is a showcase for his skill in crafting incredible hooks, as well as an unerring sense of drama.
The music video for ‘Unraveling’, directed by Cameron Dunbar, amplifies PIERA’s almost aloof coolness, with a stark, post-modern vibe that is minimalist in execution. The artists perform in a large, dark room with a low ceiling covered with rows of square lights. The effect is at once otherworldly and claustrophobic, passionate and pained, poised and teetering on the brink of abandon. Just as every throb from the synthesizer carries significance, each flash of light on the soundstage serves a specific dramatic purpose. Both Klein and Plissner wear sunglasses, which adds to their detachment and reserve — yet many times during the clip, the pair’s reserve shatters, and the feelings of destabilization and loneliness that inspired the song become bracingly apparent. All visual references to the work of illumination artist James Turrell are both intentional and expertly realized: everything in a PIERA video is there for a reason, and that reason is always well considered.
Find out more about PIERA and their music online on their official website. Watch the music video for ‘Unraveling’ below.
