Salt Cathedral is a Brooklyn-based experimental pop duo who hail from Bogotá, Colombia, Their name references a Roman church built in a Colombian salt mine. The title of their recent EP Oom Velt, on the other hand, is a phonetic corruption of the German word umwelt. Since we don’t sprechen sie Deutsch, we’ll take Salt Cathedral’s word that the term means the “individuality of experience”-like how you and I could watch the music video for their single “Holy Soul” together but never get the same thing out of it. At the end of the day, we’re all on our own planets, man.
“Holy Soul” has an ethereal, spacious quality with echoing vocal refrains that sound like a ghostly being talking to itself. The melancholic video, which was given exclusively to VICE, complements the song’s alone-but-together vibe that the “umwelt” reference nods towards. In the clip, you can see an unnamed protagonist clean a glamorous country club in isolation. As the track reaches the climax, and the young guy is nearing the end of his cleaning routine, he flashes back to memories of personal trauma at home.
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The video was inspired by the lyrics “I am a holy soul in a foreign land,” says co-director Bradley Tangonan: “The main character feels like an outsider, both at home and at the country club where he works. In the time he spends at his job, he imagines he belongs in this strange place as a way to escape.” Watch the video above. Just don’t expect it to make you feel any less alone in this bleak, bleak world.
Video Credits:
Directed by Matt Beck and Bradley Tangonan
Produced by Madeleine Askwith
Written by Julie Jones
Shot by Shabier Kirchner
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