Music News - Dudley Benson Shares 'We Could've Been Gods'
17 September 2019 - 0 Comments
Aotearoa cult-pop artist Dudley Benson today premieres video for We Could’ve Been Gods on US/UK platform The Vinyl District and announces final shows in London and Berlin.
New single We Could've Been Gods sits at the heart of Benson’s NZ top-ten album Zealandia, charged by a conversation between Benson and iconic New Zealand painter Jacqueline Fahey. Discussing the human impact on the Earth, 90 year-old Fahey said in exasperation: "We could've been gods!", and Benson replied "But we f ** ked it up”. The opening lines of the song were written.
The video for We Could’ve Been Gods came about through the mutual desire for Benson to collaborate with avant-garde dance artists val smith* and Tru Paraha. Shot by Miranda Bellamy and Solomon Mortimer, the result is an environmental response work: a semi-improvised pulse of love, sex, and earth. Benson also brought in Wellington-based visual effects artists Simon Ward and Luke Rowell to design and render a narrator-like figure.
“I’m proud of this project,” says Benson. “Unlike most of the Zealandia videos which I planned meticulously over a long period, We Could’ve Been Gods was about sharing the reins with other artist friends whose work I admire so much. It was about enjoying the process, learning together, getting kicked out of a shopping mall, and ultimately, understanding what these two spirits have to say to us.”
The video is accompanied by a suite of remixes from New Zealand producers Alcs (Alex Guthrie), Airwalk (Chris Cudby), P.H.F. (Perfect Hair Forever - Joe Locke), Cicada Ceremony and TOFU.
Over the past month Benson has been taking Zealandia on tour through the UK and Europe, and has announced two final shows. The first in London on Thursday 26th September at vFd, a ground-breaking queer arts incubator in East London, and then Berlin on Tuesday 1st October at Prachtwerk, alongside Danny Brady of Death and the Maiden (NZ), Charlie OPI (NZ) and Mike Majkowski (AUS).
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