Following on from the release of two strong remixes for their track, The Grey Cardinal, by Cold Cave and Ryan Ross respectively, Collapsing Scenery move on to unveil a very artistic and cinematic visual for the latter, directed by Z Berg (The Like, JJAMZ, Phases) and starring Collapsing Scenery, Ryan Ross, and Allison Harvard.
"The Grey Cardinal refers to Vladislav Surkov, the evil genius behind the modern Russian propaganda machine, whose tactics have gone global and are largely responsible for the total breakdown in productive discourse that characterizes modern politics," says Collapsing Scenery's Reggie Debris. "Z’s visual take on the song represents this chaos by making literal the inability of her various characters to communicate (except through violence) and their occupation of different planes of reality (by the incongruity and anachronism of the Georgian-era dandy dueling the medieval knight, tended to by an old prospector from the Wild West. as an ethereal fairy princess looks on).
"Ryan Ross’s remix takes the synthy, rhythmic original and recasts it as a brooding, gothic drama, steeped in dread and foreboding."
Director Z Berg describes in detail: "The true evil genius of our 'great' nation and the 1% who hoard almost all of its wealth, with our 50 years of stagnant wages and endlessly rising cost of living, is that those in power have managed to convince us to be proud of the 'hustle,' of the 'game,' of the endless, soul-crushing grind, with the hope that if we just hustle hard enough, we too could belong to the ruling class. It pits man against man in the endless struggle for success and survival. But it is not our war. And it is not a war that we can win. And therein lies the point. We are meant to struggle and to hustle and to fight but never to win. We are all losers in the rat race, save for the ruling class, save for great Mother Capital, The Grey Cardinal who pulls the strings behind the scenes. The extraordinary wealth disparity (not seen in this country since before the fucking Revolutionary War) creates an existential disconnect between us all. Like we exist out of time with each other. Based on mere, practically unchangeable circumstance, some of us come to the battle armed with weapons that have long since become antiquated. Some of us are born with swords, some with faulty flintlocks. And so we fight to the death and work to the bone, all the while imagining we chose this and the struggle is our own. And watching over it all is the ruling class, covered in the blood of those they exploit, becoming richer and richer with every faulty shot. Laughing maniacally as they watch us do the work for them, having convinced us it was our own idea."
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