It must be tough being one of those photogenic Parisian girls, always being followed around by nerds with Super 8 cameras whispering into your ears; all protruding cylinders and whirring film reels:
“come on baaaaaby, smoke this menthol cigarette for me”
“come on baaaaaaaaaaby wear this thick red scarf in the middle of summer”
“I’m paying for the PENSIVE baaaaaaaby!”
Maybe its the incongruity of the words accompanying this video — “Finger,” “Nasal,” “Benjamin,” “Breakdown” — suggesting volcanic eruptions from taboo sphincters, visual probes in dirty hospitals; or maybe its just my own barely submerged perversions, but these images seems less Agnès Varda, more Woody Allen.
Fused with the rippling vocal gusts of Lynn N. Fister (of Aloonaluna), “Nasal Breakdown” creates an atmosphere of breathy, seemingly unintentional sexual intimacy, a voyeurism not limited to visual flickerings. This lets the piece float away from any initial, inevitable Julianna Barwick comparisons, as renaissance man Finger (“composer, electronic music producer, DJ, photographer and film-maker”) creates a soft-core ambience of blurry subjectivities.
“Nasal Breakdown” is taken from Finger’s forthcoming album, The Bet, which comes out in June on Watery Starve.
• Benjamin Finger: http://benjaminfinger.bandcamp.com
• Watery Starve: http://waterystarve.blogspot.co.uk