In celebration of this fundamental yet ever-evolving instrument, the St Kilda Film Festival recognises Australia’s trailblazers of music and video each year through its SoundKILDA Music Video Competition.
Nominated for SoundKILDA 2017 is Client Liaison, for their animated video for World Of Our Love. Underpinning their curious and exuberant personalities, Client Liaison manifested the idea of a cultish and absurdist exotic utopia, decorated with fragments of Australian iconography.
“We started with a general idea of this tropical corporate island, this Client Liaison paradise in a mythical world and we used lots of reference images of Indian temples and drawings of nonsensical architecture,” band frontman Monte Morgan says.
“Then we had a few meetings (with video creators Oh Yeah Wow) and the aesthetic they brought on was on point from the word go.”
Independent filmmakers in the past, Morgan and band accomplice Harvey Miller enlisted the help of production company Oh Yeah Wow for the first time on World Of Our Love.
“We had a huge number of ideas of which we had time constraints and budget constraints, especially with animation which is quite time-consuming and Oh Yeah Wow picked the ones they liked the most, which they thought they could pursue in their style and we went from there.”
The product is a glamourous but equally nostalgic walkthrough of a universe where eccentric wild animals run free, opulence stands tall and exploits are unrestrained. But, as the sun goes down, the fantasy is upended.
Nothing lasts forever, nevertheless, the video represents an exciting continuation of Client Liaison’s absorbing, inimitable persona resonating so strongly with Australia’s millennial community.
“I’ve always had an interest in celebrating Australia and Harvey’s always had an interest in the nomadic businessman so we brought those things together. Politics is another one – we explore more the theatre of politics, not specific policies. It’s making politics fun which is like making Australia fun.
“And we do it in the spirit of fun more than funny,” Morgan says.” We always love having a laugh but it’s not ironic just to be ironic, it’s about creating new meaning and new layers – a whole world that people can enter and be a part of.”
An imagination so rife, Client Liaison would suffocate without visual means of expression. To gratify the band’s experience, listeners must tread beyond the confines of their recordings and absorb Client’s multimedia and live array.
“Generally, if people hear Client Liaison and like the music that’s great, but if they get the chance to see one or two music videos and a show then they can see how serious we are about it,” Morgan says.
“Without videos we wouldn’t be able to convey our world and philosophy so they’ve been hugely important. We started with releasing our song End of the Earth on YouTube – that was our first release and it wasn’t until a year later that it was available anywhere else.
“The visual has always been an integral part, what we wear, how we move, and we’ve almost gone too far. For our EP,we did a music video for every song – that cost us a lot of money and we probably didn’t need to but we really wanted to.”
An accessory so concurrent with today’s visual society has also propelled the ingenuities of KingGizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Courtney Barnett and RÜFÜS who join Client Liaison as 2017 SoundKILDA nominees.
Other finalists such as Lisa Mitchell and Dan Sultan stand alongside emerging musicians, Wishes, Dena Amy and Lilt. With 17 nominees vying for the honours of Best Music Video, Cinematography Award, Best Editing, Craft Award and Audience Choice Award, Australia’s music enterprise is teeming with creativity.
“I’d be happy for anyone to win,” Morgan says. “It’s incredible what everyone’s doing – people go to the next level now with music videos and it’s such a healthy competition.”
