Conceptual art meets electro dream waves. Talk In Colour’s latest single  The Cell fuses haunting vocals against pulsating electronic textures in a video that’s raw, intimate and unsettling at the same time. I spoke with Chris Bangs (producer and cello) and Tinge Krishnan (director) about the inspiration and process of working on the video.

Jia Jia: How did the name “Talk in Colour” come about?

Chris: It came from a conversation I had with Nick, our guitarist. I often see sounds as waves, colors and textures. We were previously known as “Shadow Orchestra” and had done stuff close to film and theater performance. One of the things we all get really excited about is working in multiple medias and collaborating. Nick came up with “Talk in Colour” because we were looking for ways to talk in colors, sounds and textures.

Jia Jia: In three words, how would you describe what you’re about?

Chris: The music is multi-layered experimental pop. As for what we’re about overall, that would be emotional, collaborative, and explorative.

Jia Jia: The Cell, both in song and video form, evokes intimacy and alienation. The video features a couple but the lyrics are more ambiguous. What’s the inspiration for this song?

Chris: It’s actually a song about cancer. One of Mary’s (keyboard and vocals) friends got sick (she’s better now thankfully) and Mary just went away and wrote this track. When we’ve spoken to Mary about it, it’s about having something come from inside you that has the possibility of annihilating you. It could be an addiction or a self-defeating process.

Tinge: That’s why I could envisage a couple. A couple as an organism that destroys itself. There are self-repeating patterns that can be destructive for relationships. At first it was going to be a choreographed piece with a couple in their flat and the singers present. Literal and real-world. But then I thought, “We’ve got an opportunity here to do something really powerful.” In the video Rolling we had just Mary and her emotions. I loved that as a filmmaker because it felt that the human being is just enough. I wanted to explore that further.

Jia Jia: The aesthetic of the piece is minimalist, stark even. Is that part of trying to bring out the pure emotions?

Tinge: We saw a Martin Creed installation. They had this beautiful infinity curve. A woman walks into the film, dressed quite smartly, clip clop in high heels, sits down, lifts up her skirt and takes a massive shit.

The kids loved it! I just loved this thing of putting something against white. Richard Avadon’s also a reference. I wanted to do Richard Avadon meets Steve McQueen.

Jia Jia: How did Tony Pitts (War Horse) and Shobna Gulati (Coronation Street) become involved?

Tinge: They came to mind because their power as improvisers is amazing and they’re really brave. They can be completely authentic. I wrote a treatment and it was nuts, like a French art student’s treatise. They’re both dancers and I spoke to them about Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. Trisha Brown did duets where people supported each other and these were essentially trust exercises.

Jia Jia: Were you looking to cast a couple with two people of different races?

Tinge: Race wasn’t even a consideration. I just thought they were two excellent actors.

Jia Jia: There are two music videos for The Cell. How did that come about?

Chris: Originally we weren’t going to release The Cell as a single. But then we did a gig with The Telegrams. He did a remix [of The Cell] and sent us. We were like, “Oh my God it’s great! It’s a lot more epic.” So I went away and remixed our version. For the PR campaign, we wanted to showcase both versions and do slightly different takes for the video.

Tinge: The two videos would be yin and yang. One would be a reflection of the other. The idea was to put the singers and actors together in the second version. But after shooting the first video, Tony came up to me and said “I’m emotionally spent.” So we decided to focus on Chris and Mary and then Tony and Shobna decided to kind of harangue them. Tony jumped on Chris and that was a surprise. From that, we got the idea of Chris and Mary being on each other’s shoulders. Then we had them look into each other’s eyes until all pretenses dropped. I didn’t want social pretenses.

Jia Jia: Sounds intense.

Tinge: We had a really quiet closed atmosphere on set. The emotions were really delicate. They [Tony and Shobna] improvised until their emotions on that section couldn’t take anymore. In order to get them happy, we had to play Pharrell’s Happy and Robert Rodriguez.

Jia Jia: Wow! Is this how you usually approach music videos?

Tinge: I’m getting more and more obsessed by human beings in general and just letting the performance come through without other stuff getting in the way. I shot it at 120 fps to get the micro expressions.

Jia Jia: And Chris, I’m going to take a step back and be a bit whimsical here. If Talk In Colour could create its own little world, what would you have in it?

Chris: Oh gosh…it would probably be filled with endless cups of tea, brownies and salty bar snacks. And we’d have unlimited time in the studio to make tunes.

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By Jia Jia
Photograph from the music video for The Cell