PRIVATE LIFE are a little Melbourne duo with a hard-to-Google name but who've nevertheless been making waves on the local scene with their banging tunes and the kind of live shows where you can't help but boogie down a little even if you're not usually inclined towards dancing.
Lead singer Renee Cassar is a little bit gorgeous, as is her voice. The video for 'Follow The Sun', their most recent offering, features her in a lovely room full of lamps, boxes and curtains artfully arranged to echo the tumultuous emotions that the lyrics evoke. Then it shows her dancing interpretatively adorned in fairy lights, surrounded by smoke. When she croons longingly "Run away with me" I just want to reply "Of course Renee, I'm coming for you!" Because when she dances, pulling at her hair, swaying around, you really do get a sense of turmoil and need. Even though it's just a video clip you can tell that she knows those emotions that she's singing about, and that she's channeling them as she sings.
Jaime Barlow, on bass, is one of the instrumentalists playing behind Renee in the video clip, and though the camera passes over him fairly often he doesn't take center stage anywhere near as much as his frontwoman does. But oh boy are the instrumentals haunting, giving the song so much depth and backing Renee's vocals with such synchronicity that it really exemplifies creative cohesion.
It's a pretty rad clip for a pretty rad song. I spent more time than I really want to admit watching it on repeat and dancing along. Luckily for us, PRIVATE LIFE are still offering both 'Follow the Sun' and 'Run Run' as free downloads on Triple J Unearthed. And if you share their video, they promised a Thank You hug on their Facebook page, so make sure you collect.
Words by Desiree Conceicao.
