Rachael Sage speaks to Polly Havelock about ‘Albatross (Reimagined)’.
Congratulations on the new music video for ‘Albatross (Reimagined)’! What inspired its creation, and would you consider it a highlight of your recent album, ‘Another Side?’
Thank you! The process of creating this video was really exciting and it was especially gratifying to work with first time director Pearl Flanagan who had such a unique and clear vision for the song. I had expressed to her early in the process that it was important to me to capture the grit and edge of my hometown NYC but also the beauty and poeticism of nature and the freedom it represents…so we decided to enlist a beautiful dancer to reflect the emotional yearning of the lyrics, and to portray me as more of the “witness” to our collective struggles during lockdown, when we were all forced to ask ourselves what it truly means to be human, and to evolve and adapt when faced with unexpected trauma.
I have always felt this track to be quite emblematic of the album as a whole, so I’m delighted we had such a dream team to help finally create these dynamic visuals to accompany it – including cinematography Mike Flanagan and editor John Shyloski who really help bring things to the next level and create something even more artful than I anticipated.
What is the significance of the clips featuring your hometown, New York, and how do they resonate with your personal message?
During lockdown I actually moved upstate to the Hudson Valley, a couple hours out of NYC. It’s a much more calm, peaceful and smaller community and as I had recently come through my cancer experience I was definitely trying to minimize exposure to Covid and to stress in general. So in some ways the clips of the City signify my yearning for connection and to remain part of the “conversation”, the center where protests against racism and social injustice were happening. Because I was necessarily isolated (primarily for health reasons), my spirit was very much torn between the desire to “show up” in person or to protect my health and show up in more remote capacities. It was such a challenging time but I also know that there was so much growth and transcendence…
The video maintains a reflective tone throughout, addressing powerful themes such as losing loved ones, the impact of COVID, political unrest, and cancel culture. How did you collaborate with Director Pearl Flanagan to convey these topics?
I think it’s often most effective in music videos to start with some core performance that can serve as the anchor – a way to ground the visuals so that other more abstract elements can weave in and out and help tell the story in an inventive way. I love using dance for precisely that reason – because with one gesture you can convey heartache, frustration, despair…or conversely, resilience and hope. She did a wonderful job casting Jarren Muse as the dancer, so from line to line his facial expressions and improvised dance movements really transport the viewer through a variety of catharses.
There appears to be a consistent theme of interpretive dance in your videos from ‘Another Side’. What does this symbolize for you, both musically and personally?
Well, my first career was actually as a ballet dancer, and I danced for over 15 years which was also how I learned to play piano – by listening too classical music as a child and then sounding it out on piano. But honestly, because I had very strict dance training (at School Of American Ballet), I wasn’t ever really encouraged to just improvise dance movement which I wholeheartedly regret. Sometimes when I compose music I choreograph steps in my mind that I don’t have the ability to perform well anymore but it’s always exciting for me to incorporate movement within my videos because, well, “once a dancer, always a dancer!”
You’re seen playing acoustic guitar in a stripped-back version of the song, which originally appeared on ‘The Other Side’. Why do you think it was important to highlight the song’s intimate essence that runs throughout ‘Another Side’?
I wrote this song on acoustic guitar isolated in an attic rental apartment just at the start of the pandemic when there was a lot of fear and overwhelm, but also a heightened, intense sense of connection because we were all being faced with the same challenge, in different degrees. As a lyricist, I consider my job to be part poetic story-teller, part personal confessor and part uplifting cheerleader; these are words I wrote to make sense of my own thoughts that I then refined and expanded to express a broader array of emotions; I always enjoy seeing songwriters play their material in a very stripped down, in-gimmicky way it just felt very natural to present it in a folkier way.
Overall, do you consider visuals to be an integral part of your musical identity? How important is it for you to create a cinematic experience alongside the track?
I’m a lifelong visual artist as well as a musician and performer so yes, visuals are very much a part of musical identity. Along with often making specific paintings, art-pieces or even costumes correlating to different songs, I tend to think of music in cinematic terms very early in the process – akin to pop and rock in the MTV/VH-1 era, which was really influential on me. But alternately, I have so much respect for the simplicity of folk and how much power there is in simply watching someone bare their soul with “three chords and a guitar” as the saying goes.
As 2024 comes to a close, what are your plans for the new year and can fans anticipate any upcoming music?
You must be psychic! As it happens I am midway through working on my next full-length album, and I’ll probably be releasing a couple singles from in in the Spring, with the completed album to follow in early Summer. It’s going to be called “Canopy” and I’m very eager to share these new tunes – some of which I’ve actually written while over here in the UK, on tour!
