Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘Ride Into The Sun,’ Findlay Brown

Composed of overexposed sunlight, fragmentation of white light, and dark, blurring profile views, Findlay Brown’s video for “Ride Into the Sun” is a kaleidoscopic, nostalgic vision. Its warm hues and visual abstractions mimic the Yorkshire-born, Brooklyn-based musician’s lyricism, as his voice takes precedent on the song’s chorus (“Get up, get up, run / Ride into the sun / Get up, get up, ride away”) atop cinematic bass, guitar, and percussion.

“The heat that envelops Findlay had to feel real; it had to come from light overexposing film and not a post effect,” the video’s director, Anthony Dickenson, says.

“Ride Into The Sun” comes from Brown’s forthcoming third studio album, Slow Light, which is his first release since 2010. “Musically, I think the new thing for me around this time was minimal music like Terry Riley and Philip Glass–music I’ve always liked but never used as a direct influence on my own compositions,” Brown explains. In addition to evolving musical influences, he also made personal life changes, such as giving up drinking and finding inspiration in “esoteric articles on spirituality, history, and psychedelics” and poetry by Rumi and Kahlil Gibran.

The thematic threads of self-reflection and transition on the album can also be seen through the transcendental qualities of video, which was recorded on 16mm film. “We chose 16mm over 35mm for the raw quality,” Dickenson continues. “All of the elements you see in this piece were created in the camera—cut glass and long exposure techniques were used as layers to burn through the film.” And as Brown says, “It has that riding through the desert feeling.”

SLOW LIGHT WILL BE RELEASED SEPTEMBER 4. YOU CAN PREORDER THE ALBUM HERE.