When Montreal-based artist Alex Henry Foster released his album-length collaboration with vocalist Momoka Tobari earlier this year, he was only getting started. The post-rock composer has hinted at another studio album and a live performance release dropping before 2024 is up, though it appears that his next project will be promoting a new film titled Voyage à la Mer that’s slated for a fall premiere and will star both Foster and his collaborator Tobari. And he’s doing just that today with the reveal of a music video for the Kimiyo album track “A Vessel Astray” in the form of a contemplative visual pulled from the upcoming film to match the mood of the eight-minute composition.
“I’m an avid fan of collages, cut-ups, and superpositions, especially when it comes to visual art forms,” Foster shares of the decision to combine the two projects. “Cinema is particularly rewarding in that sense. For Voyage à la Mer, I wanted to expose two entirely distinct timelines in the visual: myself, almost 15 years ago, being the central character of a story that isn’t mine anymore since it’s lived from a perspective that belongs to the character played by Momoka. I liked the paradoxes of being exposed through someone else’s eyes while being the one behind the camera, capturing Momoka’s emotions while we were in Japan in October, which felt like a lifetime after. Both realities exist and collide in the impermanent yet eternal movement of water, a merge giving birth to a third perspective, what I see as the ultimate eye view there is: everyone’s personal and intimate interpretation.”
Regarding his decision to precede the film with what is essentially its soundtrack, he adds: “Logic would have compelled most creators to start the journey with the movie in order to offer the listeners a tangible visual landscape to support the music and give the lyrical content a protagonist to relate to. I chose to do the exact opposite based on the same reasons. I wanted people to dwell in a language most don’t understand, to create their own images, to define their own stories, and to be at the very center of the emotional journey. It’s not about Alex Henry or Momoka; it’s about them. The movie will stand as an invitation to juxtapose their experience to someone else’s interpretation, to expand the view on an affective construct defined by its boundless nature, to decide whether it’s real enough to grow into the emotions or to outgrow them all, to collectivize the experiences and let them evolve in other people’s hearts.”
Check out the video below, and listen to Kimiyo here.
