Meet Paul Jacks, who unveils the music video for “Lightning Lobotomy” on ThriveGlobal. The song is from Jacks’ recently released debut solo album, Defractor.
Based in Anchorage, which sits at the end of the Cook Inlet in Alaska, Jacks lives and works in an area inundated with not only freezing temperatures but by active volcanoes, seemingly eager to simulate the last days of Pompeii.
On Defractor, Jacks sets aside the indie-pop sound of his band, Smile Ease, infusing the album with elements of dark electro-pop savors and extracts of new wave. The resulting sound shimmers with streaming filaments of sonic textures and hypnotic surfaces reminiscent of Depeche Mode and Howard Jones.
“Lightning Lobotomy” opens with softly emerging synths riding a thumping beat. Swirls of spilling colors radiate from the synths, as Jacks’ dreamy voice laces the tune with dreamy timbres of residual energy, like ozone smelling mists gliding over a vast machine-driven metropolis.
Blushes of electro-pop hues cascade on kaleidoscopic layers, as Jacks’ tones, like resonant logarithmic spirals, saturate the harmonics with rotating jets of slow-motion momentum. The lyrics spin out on velvety tendrils of streamlined tonal gesticulations.
“I’d rather be at home in the quick of the night / I’ll stare in outer space for as long as I like / Struck by tragedy lightning lobotomy.”
The video, animated by Eric Power, depicts a figure entering the sterile, detached environment of an airport, where he boards a plane traveling across the continent. When he lands, he visits the seashore, where he watches the sun set with his feet in the water. He continues his journey aboard the plane, roaming around the world. As he wanders from city to city, the voyage becomes surreal, achieving a bizarre isolation. His feelings of separation escalate to the point where he imagines himself roving through outer space, moving from planet to planet.
The visual images of the video combined with the silky textures of the music deliver a hallucinatory experience both alluring and bewitching.
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