The Well Post “Sabbah” Live in Quarantine Video; Should Probably Be Touring
One has to assume that if all were even close to being right in the world, Austin trio The Well would be spending a goodly portion of 2020 on the road. Such narratives are familiar enough by now when it comes to touring bands — yet still somehow sad — but as their home nation and mine continues its descent into reactionary fascism against the majority of public will, feels the ravages of climate change in various fires and storms — and firestorms! — and yes, still boasts tens of thousands of new cases of a not-so-global-anymore pandemic every. single. day., creativity will not be stifled. Perhaps that will be the last refuge before whatever grim fate the next several years might bring. Perhaps it will save us in the end. I won’t profess to know how it’s gonna work out.
But while things are bleak and growing bleaker with each executive tweet actively courting white supremacy, The Well have a new video. I know. Sometimes when you look at the stakes of shit happening in the world right now, these things seem minor, but you have to understand that they’re not. The fact is creativity matters — and no, that’s not a play on or a contradiction of Black Lives Matter, because jesus fucking christ Black Lives Fucking Matter and what the fuck did your parents do to you if you think otherwise, I’m just saying art is important — especially in times of turmoil. Consider the crucial output of Weimar Germany, film and paintings capturing the foreboding of that era. I wonder if decades from now people will look at the work being done in 2020 and feel the palpable sense of how we knew something was going and had gone horribly wrong, and were aware of the dangers we faced every day.
It all feels completely overwhelming, and it is. Whether you use the new The Well video for a few minutes of escapism, or just to see some color in a universe that looks increasingly grey, or just to check out the song, I’m not going to argue. It is the function of art, consciously or not, to reflect the moment of its creation in the interpretation of those making it. “Sabbah,” this live-captured version of the track from The Well‘s 2019 third album, Death and Consolation (review here), is a work in which the circumstance itself becomes part of the expression. Recorded separately by the members of the band, each then filming their part alone, they are seen spliced together, evoking the sum-of-their-parts cliché maybe, but emphasizing the importance of group function even in a moment that demands and enforces solitude.
Did The Well mean for all that to be in the video? I don’t know. Maybe they’re just trying to keep a little momentum going since they can’t, as noted, be touring. I don’t think that lessens the validity of the above. If you do, I guess you can start your own blog and write about it.
Enjoy the video:
The Well, “Sabbah” live quarantine video
During a global pandemic, an American political revolt and a new world in quarantine, one has to consider fresh ways to view the production of videos and making and performing music in unchartered territory, unlike anything this generation has seen before. The Well tackled just that when faced with creating a video for their single ‘Sabbah’ from their most recent release Death and Consolation. With a limited time frame and social distancing in full effect, The Well had to get creative, channeling a psychedelic dark experience through a very different means. Each member of the band (Ian Graham on guitar, Jason Sullivan on drums, and Lisa Alley on bass) recorded their parts individually with sound engineer, TV’s Daniel, masked up in their practice space in Austin, Texas.
The next night, on a small outdoor set, each band member filmed their respective video parts solo, joined only by TV’s Daniel as masked director and videographer. The scenes were then inter-woven together into a mesmerizing smokey psychedelic dreamscape using 3 cameras and projector lights to reconstruct the group experience. All said and done, this live version of Sabbah was recorded, mixed, shot and edited in a three day quarantine time turnaround, resulting in a unique and experimental piece of work that encapsulates the energy of The Well’s live performance, despite being surrounded by nothing but uncertainty and detachment in the world around them.
The Well, Death and Consolation (2019)
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