Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘The Magician’s Niece,’ Iroquois Falls

Remember the first time you listened to Sonic Youth? The way the guitar throbbed? The way Kim Gordon’s voice cut from breathy whisper to hoarse yell? The way those cigarettes you and your best friend were smoking made you puke later? (Maybe not that last part.) Iroquois Falls’ “Magician’s Niece,” the video for which we’re happy to premiere here, has the same kind of raw sound that calls to mind both the late ‘80s and the magnetism of the first time you listen to something you know you’ll play over and over.
 
Wavering and grainy, the video for the single from the band’s EP Twice-Born-Once-From-A-Gun opens like a diary entry. To the din of guitars, grinding almonds, and egg roll wrappers, singer Priya Thomas reels, spins, and occasionally, unnervingly stares into the camera. The effect, coupled with the flicker of found footage, is at once trance-like and jarring. The video builds, falls, and stops completely—only to pick up again with the pounding guitar. Meandering structurally and abstract visually, “Magician’s Niece” is spacious. The viewer or listener is invited to inject their own associations into the work and extract their own meanings. “Gonna be / Gonna be alright,” Thomas chants throughout. After this entrancing single, we think it will be for Iroquois Falls.   

FOR MORE ON IROQUOIS FALLS, VISIT THE BAND’S MYSPACE.