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Music

Kelsey Lu’s "Shades of Blue" is a Glorious Visual Love Letter To Nature

At nine minutes long, her new video will make you want to roll in the grass outside and take fresh gulps of air.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB

Some people are naturally musical: they have music in their veins, coursing through them like blood. Kelsey Lu, a classically trained cellist and musician whose songs feel like lullabies, is one of those people. Her most recent single "Shades of Blue" is an excellent starting point when it comes to her sound and the ideas in her work, and today she has released a nineminute video, broadening and expanding on that track's themes.

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Talking about "Shades of Blue," Lu says:

I wrote "Shades of Blue" when I was squatting in a leather factory in Hoboken, New Jersey. I was really depressed at the time, and my life had flip-flopped in many ways – musically, financially, romantically and, really, soulfully. Yet, I was writing a lot more than I had been and this song is a manifestation of that point in my life. For me, it was a glimpse of hopefulness and peace from within that depression and I can only hope it will bring a similar moment of peace to the listener.

The video, which you can see above, takes this message and make it flesh: In it, the outdoors are frequently a metaphor for hope. At the beginning, Lu a tiny figure amidst a broad, dark wooded area, where she digs and dances, and later, scenes of her lying listless in a room with windows for walls are juxtaposed with moments where she's out in lush, green scenery and wide expanses of blue.

It's a lovely imaging of the song's origins and its lyrics of feeling trapped in sadness, and shows that Lu is a new, innovative artistic force. Watch "Shades of Blue" above, and maybe make time this weekend to, you know, go for a walk or breathe some fresh air or something.

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