by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Just in time for Halloween, Raleigh’s Jenny Besetzt are sharing a brand new music video for “Nite Terrors,” a haunting focal point of their recent album, Goner. Released during the height of summer via Self Aware Records (Amanda X, Myriads, Gay Meat), the band’s knack for 80’s post-punk at its most romantic end is full of cinematic plumage. There’s no missing the band’s grandiose arrangements, echoing in patient yet still air. The record feels like a gray cloud slowly passing over black and white vignettes, the shadows all encompassing but the beauty remains. The NC based trio rely heavily on the classics, recalling bands like Joy Division, New Order, and Echo & The Bunnymen, with a soft glide, a seismic croon, and an eerie center always present.
“Nite Terrors” opens with the kind of ominous atmosphere that could score a horror movie, so it’s fitting that video’s title card pays homage to Stranger Things. Directed by Taylor Casey, the clip features lifeless deer heads, unblinking eyes, and just about all that goes bump in the night, approaching ever closer. With hands that bind the dread, Jenny Besetzt’s romanticism is led by a wide open swoon that seems to find comfort in waking nightmare, the confusion of where reality begins and ends forever blurred.
Speaking about the song, vocalist/guitarist John Wollaber shared:
"‘Nite Terrors’ is about how you can be haunted by aspects of your childhood. It’s my baby Babadook project. I had moved into this old house and it was the first time I’d lived alone as an adult. I don’t believe I had hauntings per se but the house was very old and it was there that I had these experiences with sleep paralysis that the song describes. The chorus of “Between asleep and awake” is a reference to young adulthood as this hypnagogic state where you’re waking up from the dream of childhood and trying to move about the world as if you know what you’re doing.”
About the video Casey (director, editor, set design, filming, co-concept) said:
”While shooting this project I experienced a lot of chaotic peace which felt very on theme. In particular the Deer scenes. I filmed those outside, late at night on seemingly the most humid nights of summer. Completely alone. I live in a remote wooded area so other than the few lights I had on the Deer it was pitch black. 3am and I felt like the only person in the world.”