Gilligan Moss’ “Ceremonial” Video Captures The Visceral Ceremony Of A Night Out
The New York-based producer wanted to capture the “trauma and ecstasy” of the club in his new visual.
"Ceremonial," the euphoric title track from Chicago native Gilligan Moss's debut EP, is far from a straightforward club jam: its synth stabs and garbled vocals frequently give way to a crisp, bristling tension. It's that tension that makes the producer, now based in Brooklyn, so arresting, and it's what director Oscar Hudson (who also directed Moss' "Choreograph" video) draws on to make the accompanying visual so uncomfortably unforgettable. Hudson has the lead actor strapped to a car, and dragged—literally—on his stomach through the mud of rural Buckinghamshire to get to the club.
"This was one of those songs where I was trying to create a mood, rather than a specific narrative," Gilligan Moss explained over email to The FADER. "The initial mood was intended to feel like a weird ritualistic ceremony involving shamans and motorcycles. For the video, we took that as a starting point, but framed things around something more literal: the ceremonial aspects of going out for the night. We wanted to explore the shared space between being dragged through a field at night and losing your mind in a dark sweaty club—finding the trauma and ecstasy that is inherent to both.”
Gilligan Moss’s debut EP Ceremonial is out now on London-based label AMF Records, and available to stream. Catch him live at Decibel Festival in Seattle this Saturday, September 26.