While José Lobo has been soundtracking many a morning since his debut album In all good Hope arrived back in October, the Montreal-based songwriter aims to reach a more international audience with the new re-release of the LP courtesy of Paper Bag Records. Threadbare folk compositions such as the Diana Gameros–featuring “Lista pa’ la carrera” feel custom built for slowly waking up with a warm mug of caffeine—even if it’s a bit earlier than you’d planned to be awake. “I think it’s a 4 to 5 a.m. song,” Lobo clarifies of “Lista.” “Maybe a song you wake up from a dream and need to work on.”
In celebration of In all good Hope reaching new audiences, Lobo re-teamed with Gameros for a softly lit visual for the track in which the harmonized voices bring their lyrics to life. “The idea for the video was inspired by a specific line of the song: ‘Jugamos a las cartas / Nuestra mano perdió contra su presente,’ which means to play cards knowing that your hand already lost against the present,” Lobo shares. “This made me think of a video where we played different games—cards, Scattergories, even competing who can bring down the blinds faster—and I lost miserably in all of them. Well, this is how I’m deciding to frame it now, and not say that in reality I suck at all of these games.”
He goes on to note that a certain overhead shot was directly lifted from the opening scene from Agnes Varda’s Cleo From 9 to 5, while the repeated images of flower vases and blinds (“so many blinds…”) helped build an entrancing set of visual motifs. “The video was also taken to other dimensions thanks to [director Miranda Guzman]’s eye and her pursuit of the delicate,” he adds. “The small moments for example: the close up on Diana’s huaraches, the close ups of the hands, the light across the vases, the way she captured those are wonderful.” He also shouts out video collaborator Jean Néant: “Jean’s decisions in his editing made it so that the video truly encompassed the song with some of the editing aligning perfectly with the more ambient, spatial parts of the song.”
See the results below, and check out the reissue of In all good Hopes via Paper Bag here.
