Exclusive: Sons of Raphael debut their latest music video – here, one half of the band and director of the video, Loral Raphael, tells us all about it
- TextAnother Man
“Their throats are opened graves, they use their tongues to deceive.” So reads a description of London-based band Sons of Raphael, found on one of their social media accounts. Not your average band biography, but then Sons of Raphael aren’t your average band. Comprised of two brothers – Loral and Ronnel – who were born and raised in north-west London, Sons of Raphael have gained traction over the last couple of years for their offbeat and refreshing approach to rock music. One publication has even dubbed them the “messiahs” of the genre. Today, exclusively on AnotherManmag.com, this duo debut the music video for their song Siren Music, which is actually shot by Loral himself and represents the band’s second collaboration with acclaimed cinematographer Manuel Claro. Here, speaking in his own words, Loral introduces this video, which you can watch below.
“The idea for the video started with a quote from the book of Lamentations: ‘Joy has left our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning.’ I wanted to create a visual representation of my brother’s lyrics in the medium of dance because it’s an unknown territory for us and the challenge was interesting.
“We never really danced before and wanted to jump into a world that we are not familiar with at all. If that wasn’t challenging enough I also wanted the video to be a one take video, no editing at all, and to make my life even more difficult I decided that we would film the one take in slow motion, but synced with the music, meaning that we had to dance to a sped up version of the track.
“In terms of aesthetic and technicality, I always shoot on film, but this time I wanted to keep the whole process 100 per cent analogue. No editing, no digital grading or any after-effects. When we make music, we record everything on tape, and we mix everything on a desk with no computers involved. It only makes sense to do the same when making a video. But in film nowadays, even when projects are shot on film, they tend to colour them on a computer in a grading suite, and I wanted to avoid that. In order to get the texture and colours that I was looking for, we had to colour the film in an old school lab. The difference is astonishing. Digital is more about details, analogue is about emotion for me, and all I care about when I make music or film is capturing a certain emotion.”
