Text: Alec Coiro
When last we reached out Wing Vilma in his Michigan home, he was telling us about the release of his album Safe by Night. Since then he has concocted a multilayered video to accompany his brand new single “Still One.” The music on the track hooks you with its atypical yet deeply groovy beat and then takes you for a ride masterfully chauffeured by Wing Vilma’s vocals. Wing Vilma is Miles Coleman, the young maestro behind all you hear on the track. He is also solely responsible for the video we’re premiering today. The video is cleverly framed (cleverness born out of circumstance it turns out), and takes the viewer in and out of Coleman’s own personal travelog. To accompany or premier, we were also lucky enough to have a second round of conversation with Wing Vilma.
“Still One” catches the listener with its remarkable rhythmic introduction. Can you tell us a little about the process of creating the beat? It seems like you adventure outside the traditional western drum kit in terms of the instruments you use.
I wanted the beginning of this song to emulate a kind of vortex, and after spinning around and around, your anticipation building, you get sucked in to the center of the vortex and come out on the other side in a lush world of rhythm and texture where my voice emerges to tell a story of losing time. Although it sounds the most organic of any of the songs on the record, a lot of the percussion comes from software instruments that I performed from start to finish while recording. In a lot of ways the performance element of this song comes from the manipulation of effects I applied to the sounds I used. The first sound you hear when the song starts is software instrument tablas I performed pitch shift effects on to produce that swooping movement and pulling feeling.
The video foregrounds its use of framing devices. What was behind the decision to use these framing devices?
I filmed this video on an analog camera, but realized I didn’t have any way to digitize it in the time I had to make it. The way I framed it has more to do with the lack of options than anything. I played back the raw footage I had and filmed on a television and then filmed the television on my phone to have it digitally. I find most of my favorite works of art are products of limitations like that.
We began to feel like were in a Nancy Drew point and click computer game, so I wanted to edit the footage to reflect this in some way.
What the source of the images and footage you use in the video?
Last summer I was on a road trip through the upper peninsula of Michigan with my girlfriend and we stopped an old iron mining town called “Fayette” where the state has worked to restore the buildings in the park to their original turn of the century glory. We became infatuated with the feeling of the place and explored for hours. We began to feel like were in a Nancy Drew point and click computer game, so I wanted to edit the footage to reflect this in some way. That was one of my favorite moments of the summer and I’m glad I preserved it the way I did.
Does your style of composing videos reflect/compliment your music making style?
I don’t know if I can say my style of making videos is similar to the way I make music, I’ve only made a few at this point, but I am working on another one for the song “Daviiis” which features an art installment I put together recently. I’ll have this ready to accompany the Vinyl when it comes out later this month.
