September 13, 2021
Written By Amara Sorosiak
Boston Manor's 'Carbon Mono' and Painting Pandemic Escapism
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British rock band Boston Manor made their much anticipated return on August 20th with the release of ‘Carbon Mono,’ a chilling hard rock feat, and their premiere single with Sharp Tone Records. A music video for the song premiered on the band's Twitch channel alongside the drop. Directed by Zak Pinchin, the video for ‘Carbon Mono’ depicts the band in a new light, yet a familiar one all the same.
The video is especially unsettling, featuring extreme and disorienting close ups of eyes, lips, skin, and hair follicles, almost defamiliarizing viewers from the features that grace their own bodies as they watch every twitch, lip movement, and pupil dilation occupy the screen. Needless to say, it’ll make some shift in their seats. We don’t just see the video’s models this up close and personal, though—the band as well. Assimilated into shots with the models are Boston Manor playing along to the song on their respective instruments, in true rock video fashion. Frontman Henry Cox sings each verse, though he is rarely seen doing so, as many shots of him only show his eyes or eyebrows moving as he sings.
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The video’s most striking characteristic is how the models are always intertwined, with very little autonomy. Whether confined to white sheets or each other, the video’s models move together as if they’re one organism, or entirely new ones. Between the models caressing each other and the too-close-for-comfort shots, ‘Carbon Mono’s’ video is an intimate one. It speaks to a greater trend in modern music videos, and how we’ve consumed visual and performance art in the past year and a half.
During the Twitch premiere for the video, Henry Cox described it as being about “the anxiety that people are feeling about getting into a close space, and touching each other’s faces and breathing on each other,” more than likely due to being isolated, and being told to keep our distance from each other, for over a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the UK, and USA, start to open up again, there is still a very real nervousness about going out and doing what were “normal” activities pre-pandemic—whether due to the rise in Delta variant cases, or just from diminished social skills. Regardless, the intimacy of the ‘Carbon Mono’ video is not what we’ve been accustomed to for the past year—far from it—and almost simulates what normal closeness pre-COVID feels like now.
During the Twitch premiere for the video, Henry Cox described it as being about “the anxiety that people are feeling about getting into a close space, and touching each other’s faces and breathing on each other,” more than likely due to being isolated, and being told to keep our distance from each other, for over a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the UK, and USA, start to open up again, there is still a very real nervousness about going out and doing what were “normal” activities pre-pandemic—whether due to the rise in Delta variant cases, or just from diminished social skills. Regardless, the intimacy of the ‘Carbon Mono’ video is not what we’ve been accustomed to for the past year—far from it—and almost simulates what normal closeness pre-COVID feels like now.
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Boston Manor are not the first artists to use this concept in a music video during the pandemic. One of the earliest examples, released two months after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, was Harry Styles’ video for ‘Watermelon Sugar,’ which begins with a note that states: “This video is dedicated to touching,” a not-so-subtle jab at what COVID has deprived us of. Later examples include fellow UK rockers Trash Boat with their videos for ‘Silence Is Golden’ and ‘Don’t You Feel Amazing?,’ Billie Eilish’s ‘Lost Cause,’ PVRIS’ ‘Monster,’ and even Olivia Rodrigo’s live performance of ‘jealousy, jealousy’ for her Sour Prom film. Most of these videos aren’t explicitly a response to COVID and a desire for human contact, though. However, given the circumstances these videos were conceived under, perhaps this was still on the brain, as desire and passion often comes from deprivation, so much so that it makes its way into a music video’s artistic direction.
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Regardless, this trend within music videos depicts a reality many of us have longed for—or simply want to go back to, throughout the pandemic, one where we can freely interact with each other without the added anxiety of getting sick, or getting others sick. As much as it hurts to say, this desire for a simple reality is a form of escapism, or “purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine,” according to Merriam-Webster. Art and media as a means of escape, either in its creation or in its consumption, is nothing new, but what does escapism have the potential to be during COVID, beyond a passtime while in isolation? Of course it can be some solace during turbulent times, but also serve as a reminder of what once was, which might even cause some frustration.
Escapism is widely regarded as a distraction, especially with audio/video media such as TV, movies, YouTube, Tiktok, and of course, music videos. However, escapism through media is not total distraction from everything, but rather unequivocal attention to one thing or issue—it’s just not what others want you to pay attention to. To that end, escapism can be viewed as resisting the status quo, especially when used in the right places. It is an opportunity to see the world in a different light, or even as it once was, all while putting the mind at ease. Marie Hållander cites Ernst Bloch in saying that “social justice cannot materialize without regarding things differently. Something that is merely ‘day-dreaming’ or ‘escapism’ might be a seed for a new and more humane social order. It can become the happiness, the love, and as he writes, victory” (Hållander 8).
So what do artists like Boston Manor, Harry Styles, and Billie Eilish seek to change, whether consciously or unconsciously, through their respective music videos? There’s obviously a desire to return to normalcy, and unconditional human contact. In these videos, though, lay a hope that humanity will come back from this pandemic closer than before. Reality has proven the opposite, with people being more outwardly polarized, and inconsiderate of each other, than ever, but these artists’ “daydreaming” could remind us of the interpersonal connections we’re sacrificing for our hate and neglect of a worldwide issue. In other words, they want to watch the world (as we know it now) die a slow death as we make progress.
Escapism is widely regarded as a distraction, especially with audio/video media such as TV, movies, YouTube, Tiktok, and of course, music videos. However, escapism through media is not total distraction from everything, but rather unequivocal attention to one thing or issue—it’s just not what others want you to pay attention to. To that end, escapism can be viewed as resisting the status quo, especially when used in the right places. It is an opportunity to see the world in a different light, or even as it once was, all while putting the mind at ease. Marie Hållander cites Ernst Bloch in saying that “social justice cannot materialize without regarding things differently. Something that is merely ‘day-dreaming’ or ‘escapism’ might be a seed for a new and more humane social order. It can become the happiness, the love, and as he writes, victory” (Hållander 8).
So what do artists like Boston Manor, Harry Styles, and Billie Eilish seek to change, whether consciously or unconsciously, through their respective music videos? There’s obviously a desire to return to normalcy, and unconditional human contact. In these videos, though, lay a hope that humanity will come back from this pandemic closer than before. Reality has proven the opposite, with people being more outwardly polarized, and inconsiderate of each other, than ever, but these artists’ “daydreaming” could remind us of the interpersonal connections we’re sacrificing for our hate and neglect of a worldwide issue. In other words, they want to watch the world (as we know it now) die a slow death as we make progress.
Works Cited
Hållander, Marie. "'Never Again the Everyday': On Cinema, Colportage and the Pedagogical Possibilities of Escapism." Springer Nature, 2021.
Hållander, Marie. "'Never Again the Everyday': On Cinema, Colportage and the Pedagogical Possibilities of Escapism." Springer Nature, 2021.
