Lena Douglas and Harry Quinlan team up to create a film clip illustrating the beauty of everyday Melbourne life
Earlier this year composer, pianist and vocalist Lena Douglas - best known for her work with electro-pop band Tetrahedra, chamber art-rock 7-piece Tulalah, and as the co-founder of gender equality initiative YoWo Music - launched her debut solo record Friends of the Future.
A week after releasing the album, Lena received an email from film maker, Harry Quinlan. “I came across Lena’s album when a mutual friend shared it on their Instagram story and decided to give it a listen on the tram.” says Harry. “I was listening to the track Esb, and as the music crescendoed the tram moved forward and revealed dancing lights on the Regent Theatre marquee. In that moment it struck me how seemingly random things rushing past can be given profound meaning by music.”
Flashing images of everyday life in Melbourne combine with flowing felty piano arpeggios to create a clip that reminds us of the beauty in ordinary life. Melbourne locals can expect to see familiar scenes of Sydney Rd’s Alaysa Turkish restaurant, elderly men loitering in Coburg, school excursions at Federation Square, runners at Princes Park and St Kilda Beach at dusk.
“Someone else also told me that listening to my music made ordinary mundane life feel beautiful, so Harry and I agreed that creating this feeling was our mission for the clip too” says Lena. Harry knew he wanted to capture real moments and real people: “I got nervous and planned and filmed a few shots but they never made it into the cut; it became obvious that the images in the clip must have a feeling of authenticity, because the music is so honest and open”.
Esb is a calm instrumental track, but the rest of the album Friends of the Future is more eclectic than you may expect, bringing together influences from European jazz traditions, contemporary folk-pop, and the additive techniques of minimalist composers. Drawing from her love of artists such as Ethan Gruska, Phoebe Bridgers, Andrea Keller, KNOWER and Caroline Polachek, Lena has created an album full of warmth, intricacy and hope. Brought to life by some of Melbourne’s most talented musicians and produced by musical mastermind Theo Carbo, expect to hear uplifting melodies, delicately interwoven textures and progressive journey-like forms with occasional moments of improvisational prowess and hard-hitting rhythmic energy.
Lena has recently moved to Stockholm, closer to where her inspiration for some of this track originated - “the piano arpeggios in this track reminded me of a piece by the Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson, so I called it ‘Esb’ after him”. Originally, it was titled ESB, but Apple Music’s haunting naming conventions prevented such capital letter trickery.
Harry and the film team shot the Esb clip using 16mm film, spending a day in the car capturing footage, and then taking the care to send it across the world to be developed in London. “You are taking the everyday but treating it reverentially” says Harry. You are asking people to pay attention to the things they see, to wake up and realise that beauty is all around them”.
Lena’s Friends of the Future album can be streamed here.
An unlisted YouTube link for Esb video clip can be found here.
Film credits:
Directed by Harry Quinlan
Cinematography by Scott Pope and Martine Wolf
Produced by Lawrence Phelan
Driving by Matt Wallace
Colour Grade by Adrian Eppel
Film Scanned and Developed by Cinelab London
Esb credits:
Music written by Lena Douglas, produced by Theo Carbo and mixed by Josh Barber.
Performed by Lena Douglas (piano), Felix Watson (flugelhorn), Nick Roder (bass), Lewis Pierre-Humbert (drums) and Theo Carbo (lapsteel).
Made in Melbourne, Australia on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Boonwurrung land.