watch Ben Seretan's video for "Shadow," shot on Rockaway Beach

NYC indie rock singer/songwriter Ben Seretan has a new video for “Shadow” off his very good, recently released album Youth Pastoral. He shot the unique video in the Rockaways by putting large mirrors in the sand, right around the time the COVID-19 fears started to escalate but before the full lockdown began, as Ben tells us:

One morning shortly after the record came out I borrowed my gf’s enormous pickup truck and drove with Kat DeNeve + Yael Nachajon (aka KAYA, the video directors) out to the Rockaways before dawn. It was already surreal and empty-feeling to be there in the dark hour before the sky got light, but this was maybe the first day that real COVID fears had started creeping in. Kat and Yael make amazing and weird and life-affirming and kind of eerie dance videos (find them on Instagram!) and, though both of them know how to produce high-quality, big production value stuff, they’ve been more interested lately in doing things quickly, with available materials. So we carried these mirrors in a big blue Ikea bag out the shore and set up the shot on Kat’s phone. The slo-mo is extreme, so Yael and I danced for a total of 23 seconds at a time – those 23 seconds, when played back, cover the entire length of the song (imagine us dancing as furiously as possible for 23 seconds, kicking up sand while Kat yells directions, sun rising to our left). All their idea, they had it all timed out – I was just willing to wiggle. I love how effortlessly their video incorporates so much of what the record is about – movement, bodies, the ocean, the sun. Also it was freezing that morning – they’re extremely good sports.

This video is especially poignant to me now – that was the last big outing I had before retreating indoors, and the last concert I’ll go to for potentially months was that night at Pete’s Candy Store. It’s touching now to see evidence of us having hung out, having gone somewhere, having done something out of the ordinary.

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