The 1943 avant-garde milestone Meshes Of The Afternoon served as the main inspiration for the fittingly surreal visual manifestation of Swimming Bell’s “95 At Night.”
“The song is really dreamy, so I thought a dreamy video would be a good idea,” says director Christopher Good.
Now preserved in the United States National Film Registry, the hugely influential experimental short film was created by Ukrainian-born Maya Deren and her husband, Alexandr Hammid. “You could probably watch Meshes Of The Afternoon and then make a killer tiramisu—it’s just generally inspirational,” says Good, a documentary filmmaker who’s also directed videos for Mitski, Okkervil River, Kevin Morby and others.
“95 At Night” is the latest single from Somnia (Perpetual Doom), a gently immersive five-song EP released in May. With help from Grammy-winning producer Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Kurt Vile, Guided By Voices), Swimming Bell’s Katie Schottland goes all in on Somnia’s ethereal aquatic netherworld—and its potential for serving as a sort of escape hatch to a realm where “everything is softened and suspended.”
Schottland was so impressed with Good’s past work that she made the trip from Los Angeles to his home base in Lenexa, Kan. “I hadn’t met Christopher, but it felt like we’d known each other forever,” she says. “We were laughing the whole time. I was glad to give him complete control to come up with the concept, knowing that we both like absurdity.”
“Katie bought me my first-ever coffee,” says Good. “I didn’t get hooked, but I appreciated the attempt.”
We’re proud to premiere Swimming Bell’s “95 At Night.”
—Hobart Rowland
