GelaX – ‘Voodoo’ 

Toronto band GelaX aren’t afraid to dabble in a little of the old dark magic, and their new single, ‘Voodoo’ is mesmerising, dangerous, intoxicating, and impossible to resist.

Using synthesizers, drum machines, state-of-the-art digital recording software, and their own, treated voices, GelaX’s music has a hallucinatory quality about it. The video for ‘Voodoo’ adds to this; it’s dizzy, disorienting, and thoroughly entertaining, and amplifies the effect of the music.

Direction of the clip was done by GelaX singer, multi-instrumentalist, and Gelareh Keyvani She’s a mistress of light and shadow, knowing just when to cloak a subject’s body in darkness, and when to suddenly flood it with illumination. She understands how best to angle the camera to create maximum intrigue, and how to pace cuts to unnerve and excite the viewer. Most of all, she understands the expressive power of the human face: luckily both she and her GelaX bandmate Tareq have particularly expressive features.

It’s not the first rodeo for Keyvani, who was responsible for the band’s 2020 video for ‘Mr. Square’, and like ‘Mr. Square’, ‘Voodoo’ pays no heed to our concepts of genre boundaries. Keyvani matches its music to restless images, as well as sped up footage to create a feeling of acceleration and confinement. We also see Gelareh and Tareq captured in a box too small to be comfortable. They appear and disappear; they’re twisted and folded, but they remain unbroken. Gelareh’s head is shown on a bed of lettuce, whereupon appears to bend and melt like wax.

Watch the video for ‘Voodoo’ below and check out GelaX’s official website to learn more about this mesmerising band and their music.

GelaX - Voodoo (Official Music Video)

About the author

Lisa has been writing for over 20 years, starting as the entertainment editor on her university newspaper. Since then she's written for Popwrapped, Maximum Pop, Celebmix, and ListenOnRepeat.

Lisa loves all good music, with particular fondness for Jedward and David Bowie. She's interviewed Edward Grimes (Jedward), Kevin Godley, Trevor Horn, Paul Young, Peter Cox (Go West), Brendan B Brown (Wheatus), Bruce Foxton (The Jam), among many many more. Lisa is also available for freelance writing - please email lisa@essentiallypop.com