Samaris has just announced its forthcoming album Black Lights. Written entirely in English for the first time, the ethereal band’s members are rather fascinatingly all based in separate cities and hence recorded the LP across Berlin, Reykjavik, and Ireland. As the band prepares to release it, Samaris shares the cinematic visuals for the lead single exclusively with i-D.
“‘Wanted 2 Say’ has been in our lives for quite some time and we wanted to give it the visuals it deserved,” Samaris told us. “We put it in Thora Hilmarsdottir’s hands — a great director and filmmaker that we trust completely. The outcome is a video with a beautiful dance piece that touches on some of themes in the song itself while adding a couple of new ones. We are excited to share it with our fans.”
Under the light of an Icelandic blood moon, something strange begins to happen to the local teenage girls. “Since the earliest days of history, the moon is believed to have a powerful influence over human and animal behavior in an almost supernatural way, and in various biblical passages a blood moon was thought to be a bad omen,” explains Thora. “In this video I wanted to explore that and peek into mysterious situations around a few young girls on a night of red moon.”
Filmed one cold winter’s night on an abandoned military base, there’s something beautiful but very unsettling about the Let the Right One In-inspired video. Supporting the free the nipple movement, the end shot does just that. “I just think I should be allowed equal rights as men,” continues Thora. “It shouldn’t matter if it’s a female nipple or a male nipple — it’s just a nipple, we’ve all got them. Men had to fight for their right to be topless in the 30s and have been allowed to do so since. Now we need to desexualize the female nipple and allow it to be socially acceptable for women to go topless in public. Social media should not ban images of female nipples, especially if the women in the images are not being obviously sexualized, for example during breastfeeding.” May our young women be ever inspired and our nipples freed.
Catch Samaris live at Camden’s Lock Tavern on April 5 ahead of its June 10 album release.