Animalia shares spellbinding new video for ‘Face On’

Photo: Neva Wireko

Toronto-based alt-pop artist Animalia has shared a spellbinding new video for her song “Face On.”

The video sees ghostly images of Animalia singing and moving to the song – images that play with dramatic light and shade – interspersed with close ups of skin and eyes and hair and hands, focusing on those parts of our earthly bodies that interpret and deliver our sensory experience and prompt our emotional response.

Directed by Brandon Cronenberg (the sibling of Caitlin, who shot the cover of Drake’s Views), the video – which premiered via The Fader – continues a theme from the duo’s 2014 collaboration on Animalia’s “Stifling.”

“Face On” is an unfeigned, dark and substantial, cleansing electronic purge of ideas and emotions. As Animalia explains:

“‘Face On’ plays with the idea of being in an actual relationship with the world – the world being the collective of life and it’s events – and in a moment of hopelessness I ask it how and why can it be so cruel and yet, how can I remain so deeply in love with it at the same time.”

As Animalia adds via The Fader: “I wrote [Face On] quickly and without worrying about the simplicity of the chord structures or vocal melody. I just used it to bluntly express myself at the time. I think because of this, it’s become one of my favourite tracks from the album. It’s a song I can still really relate to.”