World-wearied flesh is poetic, but when that Romance has worn off, when you wear it out so much you begin to feel the work of performance massage itself deeper, the weariness knots up in your bones. Your body is distressed and it costs a lot. You can smile it off when a child points and laughs at you, but you can’t always shake the suspicious looks of those who know better (or worse).
Pastel (Gabriel Brenner) invites us in, wanting to be seen, but the looks are in flux even as they’re desperate for recognition. The video is a slow procession of small tensions, between intimacy and confusion, still and motion, past and (re)present(ation). Its first images, a print of his face blowing in the wind like a Jesse Kanda skin shake with life and unease. The song’s mantra-chorus, “I just want to feel like myself again,” plays over a slideshow of childhood pictures: Did you feel like yourself then? The song is an embrace, with a knowing look and heavy heart.
Wind blows a canvas. It’s not a fitted sheet but it works its way around his body like a cover or a dress, a breathing fold. The last seconds of the video pass in darkness, reconfiguring the personality of your screen into a negative mirror. In that first glimpse you catch yourself watching someone else trying to be seen, while the wind makes it too hard to hear.