Tourist is the debut single by Vice Vera, the alter ego of Tamsin Middleton, who'll be known to followers of the Manchester music scene from her days leading Mr Heart as well as being part of both ILL and LIINES.
The single is accompanied by a video that's an essential accompaniment to the music as Tamsin explains
"In February 2020 I surprised my then partner Garth with a trip to Prague for his birthday. We wandered the city, capturing footage on his phone along the way with a half-baked plan to one day create a music video for a song I was writing, Tourist.
When we returned, other projects took precedence and we subsequently separated at Xmas 2021. This might have put a halt to the whole endeavour if we hadn’t remained friends. We committed to continue our collaboration, spending many long hours over 18 months carving out a visual narrative that serves the song. Through this process our friendship has grown stronger and we are closer now than when we were together.
We wanted to subvert the trite image of a picture postcard tourist to reflect the central lyrical metaphor of being “a tourist in your own life”: the disjointed feeling of being stuck in a loop; paradoxically always on the move but never really present; the repetitive and frustrating nature of the creative block.
On the last day we travelled up a hill to visit a grand library only to find it closed. Instead we stumbled across a stunning exhibition in a nearby chapel of the paintings of Barbora Kysilkova – the highlight of our trip. Her arresting artwork in the serene setting blew us away. We found ourselves alone in the space and inspired, so captured some video for the finale. Barbora was kind enough to give her blessing for us to use her paintings in this video.
Check out her incredible work and the powerful documentary “The Painter and the Thief” about how she struck up an unexpected friendship with the man who had stolen her artwork because he found it beautiful. In it he becomes the subject of her paintings (including one that appears in this music video). It is a stunning piece of film-making; moving and deeply human. It captures a meaningful friendship born from the process of creating something beautiful together, to which we strongly relate.
We really hope this video speaks to you. If it does, we would love to hear your feedback. It would also be really great if you could share it with anyone you feel would get something from it."
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