Sam Brookes takes a challenging and personal subject and handles it with great sensitivity on ’18 & Sleeping’, the final video from his new album, ‘Black Feathers’. The album is inspired by loss and the accompanying feelings of depression and isolation. Visually and lyrically, the new single is a delicate exploration of our deepest selves. Brookes explains: “’18 And Sleeping’ is about the feeling a lot of us would have experienced as teenagers, of struggling to face the day and to leave the cocoon of our bed covers. By my late-twenties, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t grown out of it and began to realise that I’ve been dealing with a form of depression for most of my life.”
Helena Middleton directed an absorbing video that draws out these themes with the symbolic and sinister character of the Crow. Brookes explains the visual: “In this video the Crow represents depression and my relationship with it, the video explores the feeling of being lost with a feeling you don’t understand, then a denial, then you start to fight it like something you need to get over or defeat, finally you realise that it’s just a part of you that opens up a greater understanding of who you are.”
After the critically-acclaimed 2014 album, ‘Kairos’, Sam Brookes fans have had a long wait for his next full-length release. With ‘Black Feathers’, Brookes demonstrates timeless songcraft. Patience pays off.
