[Premiere] Watch: Elephant – Allured

A young couple gaze at the camera against a shadowy background, their pale skin – a luminescent chiaroscuro, their features indistinct. A breathy female voice, angelic but bruised, at first accompanied by a simple piano, but as much accompanied by the silence between the chords. The boy leans in, then he hesitates, there’s an intake of breath. They kiss. Her voice is then layered, some very light percussion joins. The instrumentation swells – guitar and more voices, and the pair stop kissing. And that’s it. A simple video for a beautifully simple song, filled with more aching emotion than an episode of Byker Grove (that’s still going right?).

Elephant are Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck, and ‘Allured’, from the duo’s upcoming second 7”, beautifully encapsulates the uniquely teenage combination of crippling fragility, and precocious confidence. The stripped back instrumentation, and the video alike tell simultaneously of egoism and melodrama, and of crippling vulnerability. The fact that both boy and girl could be naked, but below the camera’s gaze – hinting at the powerful chemical reactions just bubbling beneath the surface of the song – the slow step between chords illustrating the push and pull of hidden tensions.

Like Rivas’ voice, with it’s dual personality of innocence and knowing, the whole song treads the line between childlike simplicity and the suggestion of something steamier. The shadowy faces in the video could be recast in the image of anyone watching – the features aren’t very clear, but the motions and emotions immediately relatable. It almost feels like you’re watching something you shouldn’t be intruding on, hearing someone read out their secret diary.

‘Allure’ is released by Memphis Industries as part of a 7”/Download Single on July 18.