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Music

Pleasure Symbols' Bleak and Stunning New Video Looks Like an Apocalyptic Hard Rubbish Day

A beautiful piece of modern dance contrasts with abandoned furniture and drab high rises on the Brisbane duo's new video.

Image: You Tube

The Scottish coast is a long and windy distance from subtropical Queensland, but for some reason it feels more suited to the cold bass and droney synth of Brisbane’s Pleasure Symbols.

The duo, of Phoebe Paradise and Jasmine Dunn, have just dropped off the video for “Underneath Your Skin,” the lead single from their debut self-titled album. With burned out cars and stark landscapes it looks like something shot on an apocalyptic ‘hard rubbish day’. As it turns out, the stunning and rather bleak scenery was filmed in Scotland by the band’s friend Mia Forrest who is a 2016 Cannes Court Métrage Official Selected Artist.

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The grim imagery of abandoned furniture and drab housing towers is interspersed with a curious and beautiful piece of modern dance. All together it’s an amazing piece of cinema that adds a dramatic tension to a song that already drips with mood and desperation .

Watch the video below and read a brief chat we had with Jasmine. Pleasure Symbols’ debut twelve-inch is available September 2 through Avant)! in Europe.

Noisey: The scenery is amazing. Whose scouted the location?
Jasmine Dunn: Mia Forrest who we had approached to create something for us, was just about to embark on a trip to the Edinburgh International Film Festival for one of her short films, so she kindly hired a camera while over there and found some appropriately dreary locations.

I like the older couple with their hands up. You can almost hear them grunting "Fook off with your cameras”. Have either of you been to Scotland?
She definitely says something along those lines. We haven't been to Scotland. It's not ranked high on my top holiday destinations. But who knows, maybe a quick dip in the North Sea next time we're over that way?

It also took me a while to realise that it was someone dancing under the gold. Who is it?
One of Mia's very patient friends who was kind enough to dance under the emergency thermal blanket for the day.

Pleasure Symbols’ debut 12’ is available Sep 2 through Death Valley Records.