Vaults has gone back to school for its new ‘Midnight River’ music video – filmed in the abandoned Carmel College in Oxfordshire.
The group’s lead singer Blythe Pepino frantically dances around the former Jewish boarding school, including its run-down swimming pool, squash courts and Grade II-listed synagogue featuring stained-glass windows by Israeli artist Nehemia Azaz.
‘”Midnight River” is all about externalising her inner trip, and I felt that an abandoned space would be the best symbolic representation of this,’ said the video’s director Jovan. ‘The empty spaces are supposed to graphically encase her in a maze of rooms, where the remnants of life, and the patina of time render a desolate and lonely atmosphere.’
Carmel College – known as the ‘Jewish Eton’ – ran between 1948 and 1997. Its dining hall and amphitheatre, designed by architect Thomas Hancock, and its gallery and boathouse by Sir Basil Spence are also Grade II-listed.
‘We were lucky to stumble upon Carmel College and further enhanced its strong moods and colour palette via colours in wardrobe,’ added Jovan. ‘After that we just let Blythe play within these confines and make her way from being lost and disoriented towards developing a sort of free and improvisational dance.’
The school’s concrete synagogue was previously used for a scene in 2011 Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady.
London-based Stinkstudios produced the video.
