Thom Yorke captures the anxiety that accompanies feeling completely isolated and alienated, despite being surrounded by many in a crowded city scape in his new video for “Last I Heard (…He Was Circling the Drain).” The song appears on Anima, which he released in June.
The Art Camp and Saad Moosajee-directed clip comprises thousands of hand-illustrated frames that were inspired by Yorke’s dreams. The black-and-white visuals depict crowds aimlessly moving through spaces, while highlighting the isolation and alienation of an individual navigating those locales anonymously and alone. “Swallowed up, swallowed up by the city,” Yorke sings in the first verse. “I woke up with a feeling I just could not take” serves as an emotional undercurrent on the jittery chorus.
“Our first and last goal was to serve the feelings of the song and the record. Thom shared a list of visions with us, disconnected images from his dreams, and we expanded on it with visions from everyone who joined the video team, over a dozen of us,” Art Camp said in a statement. “At its core, our intention was to communicate the experience of feeling completely on your own, surrounded by people you see yourself in but don’t understand, who have lost their minds to the city and can’t see that you need their help.”
Yorke recently extended his North American tour dates into 2020, with seven additional shows beginning on March 28th in Fairfax, Virginia at EagleBank Arena.
