Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘Tell Me,’ Diego Garcia

ABOVE: DIEGO GARCIA

As his new video, for the wistful ballad “Tell Me,” demonstrates, Argentine-American singer-songwriter Diego Garcia (formerly of Elefant) contains multitudes. The video, which we’re pleased to premiere here, opens with a stark, striking image: Garcia, in shadow, in a bare white room, rolling up the sleeves of a particularly nicely fitted asymmetrical button-front shirt by Robert Geller. We’ve long admired Geller, who won the CFDA Award for Menswear in 2009 and who provided all the clothes for Garcia’s video. And he’s not the only fashion heavy hitter on board: Alejandro Cardenas, art director for Proenza Schouler, filmed the video, which goes a long way in explaining its slick, understated aesthetic.

As the song—a winsome, laid-back retro ditty flocked by delicate Spanish guitar—goes on, a number of unexpected tricks pop up: a second Garcia appears, so he can provide backup vocals for his double; the room, and Garcia’s own body, become backdrops for a moody second reel of footage that finds Garcia walking along a desolate stretch of beach. It’s a little eerie, to be sure. But the sweetly forlorn cadence of Garcia’s voice, combined with the sincerity of what he’s singing (“Tell me, tell me, tell me when you’re feeling blue / I’ll sing through the sadness and stay close to you”), has us inclined to trust him. “The essence of a romantic ballad is in its simplicity to emote a feeling,” Garcia tells us. “The ‘Tell Me’ video is a simple portrait of my performance and the song. Sometimes I feel that the strongest execution is a sincere delivery, and that is what we wanted to capture.”

DIEGO GARCIA’S PARADISE IS OUT NOW. FOR MORE ON THE ARTIST, PLEASE VISIT HIS FACEBOOK PAGE.