Nazar has shared a video for his track ‘Bunker’.
The part-animated visual is directed by Rob Heppell and features Nazar alongside collaborator and fellow Hyperdub artist Shannen SP. It was shot in October of last year, with the animation following over the next eight months. You can watch the clip above.
Nazar and Shannen SP feature as the focus of the video and are backdropped by animations of a collapsing hotel, referencing a story that Nazar told director Rob Heppell about the Angolan Civil War.
In 1992, Angola’s ruling party, the MPLA, agreed to hold an election following nearly two decades of civil war. When the results came back in favour of the MPLA, accusations of electoral fraud prompted a violent response from the government.
"Two luxury hotels, the Tropico and the Turismo, usually the domain of international journalists in Luanda, were the accommodation of the opposition parties staying in the capital for the election," a statement shared by Heppell explains. "When the election erupted into violence, the people staying in the hotels were forced to barricade themselves in their rooms to hide from the government army squads sent to kill them. The song is written from the perspective of someone trying to survive inside the hotel."
Heppell’s statement continues: "I wanted to create a line of flight through this situation. Initially I tried to create an accurate reconstruction of the actual spaces within the hotels, but through the process this changed. Through researching the Angolan Civil War I wanted to create something that would create the emotional context for the song."
‘Bunker’ is lifted from Nazar’s debut album, Guerrilla. Released earlier this year via Hyperdub, it placed in the top 10 of tQ’s list of our favourite albums of the year so far, which was shared earlier this week.
