Montreal’s dark pop siren, APACALDA, has just dropped a gorgeous music video for her song “LIE 4 U.” Easily the steamiest track on her debut album from last summer, There’s a Shadow in My Room, and It Isn’t Mine, “LIE 4 U,” directed by Stacy Lee, combines fantasy with desire.
Figs, cherries and grapes, the fruit of sex and abundance in Greek myth, populate a table surrounded by jewels. The camera pulls out to reveal APACALDA, sitting at the table, held up by two shirtless men (very Beyoncé-coded), and then slowly cuts to what I can only assume is honey coating the fruit and glasses on the table. The lighting and colours also seem to be bathed in honey, which really works.
I need to give credit to the cinematography from Francis Leduc Bélanger and editing (also by Stacy Lee) as each shot moves seamlessly with the production and APACALDA’s low, sultry RnB vocals. Thematically, the track is about power in relationships, and complicity—the decisions we sometimes make to keep preserving some sort of connection. APACALDA also dances confidently and deliberately—the choreography carrying the video’s central energy: surreal feminine power, fully owned.
photo by Kandle Osborne
