Belau – Music Video of the Month – Risk It All

If 2020 taught us anything, it certainly taught us the importance of taking a moment to breathe amidst all the chaos. After all, what else was there for us to do when we were stuck inside, protecting ourselves and one another from the viral pandemic that we still find ourselves caught in? Hungarian-based chill-wave group BELAU provided some much needed musical relief with their video for their track “Risk It All“.

Belau released their sophomore album in late May, and with this record, they delivered all the chill-inducing vibes that we needed to get through what can only be described as a year from hell. Their most recent video is for their track “Risk It All” which features vocals from the soulful Britain-based Amahla. The track’s ethereal sound mixed with the video’s striking imagery is exactly why it is Mad Indie Media’s indie video of the month.

The video opens with a stunning aerial shot of a snow-littered forest, but the first thing I noticed was the crispness & lucidity of this video: it’s almost alarming just how good this video looks, as if I was actually suspended above the forest myself. We then see a man suiting up for a trek throughout the snow-covered landscape, clearly searching for something amidst the natural frozen beauty. The lyrics mirror what we see on screen as Amahla croons about how she will “run far away” and “climb together” with an unknown love interest, and we can now safely assume that the “something” this man is searching for is actually a “someone.”

Just as we are getting used to the beautiful greens and whites of the snow-capped mountainside, our leading man makes his way to an area where graffiti-covered concrete meets the rolling ocean tides. The video plays to this contrast, clashing the natural beauty we are introduced to at the start of the video with the man-made beauty of street art and architecture which we will see for the latter half of the song.

Just beyond the concrete boardwalk is an architectural splendor of pink and red geometric buildings, weaving up and down throughout a city landscape. Nestled between the buildings of our newfound city setting is a figure clad in flowing red robes, presumably the woman that our leading man has been searching for since he embarked on his journey back in the snow-tossed forest. Despite getting close, the two never seem to find one another, and the video ends with our leading man finding the mysterious woman’s locket left perfectly perched on a pink concrete ledge. Our leading man sighs as he finds the portrait of the woman he has been searching for inside, knowing that she has once again slipped through his fingers.

“Risk It All” comes from BELAU’s sophomore record, Colourwave, and the name is no doubt an intentional descriptor of the band’s desire to mix visual and auditory beauty with their work. “Risk It All” by BELAU is a stunning video not only because of the beauty and mystery that the track’s ethereal instrumentals and breathtaking vocals portray but also because of the striking visuals that the director, Péter P. Szabó, employs by pitting contrasting colors and settings against one another. So the next time you need to take a chill pill and are thinking of putting on lo-fi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to, open up “Risk It All” and melt into its aesthetic and aural splendor instead.

BELAU is an electropop duo based in Budapest, Hungary, and can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud. Amahla is a soul singer/songwriter based in the United Kingdom and can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, SoundCoud, and Patreon.

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