Video premiere: Naomi Greene, ‘Laura’

Kevin Bronson on November 30th, 2017

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The music of Naomi Greene seduces with harp and electric guitar, with lyrics seemingly cribbed from some ancient text, sung with almost supernatural purity. In her string-accented ballad “Laura,” the L.A.-based Paris native, who has collaborated with La Femme and Coromandelles, mourns her “shadow self” (the titular persona), asking “Where is the line between us and the world? / Where is the line between body and mind?”

That quest takes the singer-songwriter into nature in the video for the song, directed by Giovanna Gorassini. “We wanted to make an abstract narrative around the theme of alter egos and letting go, and cast the beautiful and stormy Flora Mathieu as my shadow self,” Greene says. “When I finished recording ‘Laura,’ I knew I wanted to work with Giovanna, whose photography is really in line with the aesthetic of tragic heroines I was going for. She captures that delicate but powerful feel of myths, and that’s exactly what she brought to the table in directing this video. We shot in the woods outside Paris in the fall, James Coote filmed on 16mm film, and the dresses by designer Yiqing Yin completed the picture.”

“Laura,” with is available on Bandcamp, features background vocals by Clara Cappagli (of Agar Agar).

||| Watch: The video for “Laura”