Moving on to the next plane after death — that’s gotta be a total downer.
That’s what’s happening to this poor woman in Future Museums’ luscious video for “Buried with Her Jewelry,” a track off The Chiller 5: Call of the Chiller on, wait for it, Chill Mega Chill Records (duh). Turns out she’s dead, and she doesn’t know it — everyone’s bitterest nightmare coming true for her! She has no internal compass, no external guidepost for this purgatory. There’s got to be something she can connect to, something that will open the portal to recognition, to remembrance…
Ah! Her jewelry! Perfect.
She’s obviously somewhat confused, pensive, ruminative. She wanders her house. She peers through curtains. She disturbs the (literal) fog (of memory, probably) that wafts through the halls, obscuring clarity with its presence. There’s a graveyard — hints of M83’s “Graveyard Girl” are not incorrect, as Future Museums’ sound is somewhat akin to the older, downtempo, semi-ambient instrumentals of that band. (Plus, there’s a girl in a graveyard.) Also not incorrect are hints for, um, Apocalypse, Now!, I think.
But the jewelry — it’s always the jewelry; it’s the link as she slips below the water (there’s water), the talisman that will gain her entry into whatever passes for the Great Beyond. I think a nice slow clap of approval is in order here — she’s done what I didn’t think she could do.
I can relate to this woman. I can think of some things that would connect me to my life, that would imbue meaning to my wandering post-demise ghost as it searches for the door to the spirit realm. Although if director Jenni Kaye and cinematographer Alex Penrose wanted to make a video with me in the lead role, we’d have to change the name of this tune to “Buried with His Record Collection, and Books, and Baseball Cards, and Nintendo, and some Thai Food, and Pictures of His Family (Yeah, They’re Cool), and a Streaming Movie Service of Some Kind, and Probably an iPhone to Watch the Movies On, and a Good Pair of Running Shoes.” I could totally fill a sarcophagus. I’m like a pharaoh of stuff!
Stream The Chiller 5: Call of the Chiller below, too, if you want, after you’ve watched the video above, of course. And you’re in further luck: Future Museums has a new record out on Holodeck called Rosewater Ceremony!
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