Playlist: RELTA

What’s the best music video you’ve seen recently and why?

Rimon - Where Do We Go, directed by Gabriel Dugué.

I love this video a lot. It’s one simple idea executed to such a high level and it makes me feel something. I always want to make people feel something.

What’s the first music video you remember being impressed by?

I’m half Persian, and I used to spend my summers in Iran throughout my childhood. My cousin there would put me on to a lot of music and music videos that he had collected, I think that’s where I first began to love music. I remember him showing me Guns N' Roses - November Rain, I think it’s the first music video I ever remember seeing, it made me want to be a rockstar.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video? 

I always struggle with picking favourites, the video that comes to mind right now is by A$AP Rocky - Tailor Swif. I watched this about 10 times in a row when it first came out, and made all of my friends watch it too. I love videos that feel surreal but still grounded in reality, everything feels so strange but so genuine in it. It’s something I’ve been trying to do more of myself.

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspiration?

I take a lot of inspiration from photography. I like to imagine the world around an image, what came before and after, so many of my music videos are extensions of an image and I think that’s why I’m always drawn to static frames in a lot of my work too. 

I really love Renell Medrano’s work at the moment, Gregory Crewdson, Petra Collins, Rubbrband, Walid Labri, Jack Begert, the list goes on.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m a big album person, I like committing to a body of work. Right now I’m listening to Venna - Malik, Daniel Caesar - Son of Spergy, Dijon -  BABY!, Renao -  Still Life. The rotation rotates, I’m drawn to poetic and soft songs a lot.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

I’m not that techy. I like analogue. I just bought an old car and bootlegged an Apple car play system into it. It feels so satisfying for my music to play automatically when I turn on the engine. That brings me some joy at the moment. I did the same with some vintage speakers in my house. I like that we can keep old things new.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

I love pop music, I want to be able to work with artists with an enormous audience and sprinkle in easter-eggs for their community. I’m such a music fan, I grew up on forums and fan pages and would dissect things like that, I’d love to be a part of it on a large scale. I’m manifesting the next Harry Styles campaign. I love that he’s one of the biggest pop stars in the world but isn’t afraid of being a little subversive. Sabrina and Dominic Fike too, I think what Reed/Jack have built is really special. 

I could list artists for hours, I want to work with everyone, I really love working with artists that I’m a fan of and getting an input on creative from a fan’s perspective. I’ve been working with Sekou a lot recently and I think he’s a superstar, he’s one of the sweetest artists and I think he’s going to be a household name very soon. I love our video for Never Gonna Give You Up a lot. There’s an amalgamation of influences sprinkled into that.

How do you feel the promo industry has changed since you started in it?

I feel like when I first started out, it was a bit of a golden age with director’s like The Rest, Oscar Hudson, and Felix Brady making some of the most amazing music videos in the country. I was always so impressed by their work. Then I feel like we entered a bit of a lul with lockdown, budgets decreasing, and DIY short form content rising, but it feels like we’re entering a real new golden era again.

I’m constantly inspired by other music video directors and it pushes me to make the best work that I can, I think artists are really valuing the importance of music videos again. I worked with Kojey Radical to direct the Album Film for his latest album and that felt like a real full circle moment for me having been so inspired by his early videos and now having the opportunity to build something that ties the themes of his sophomore album into one cohesive film.