Every time I see the words ‘post’ and ‘isolation’ in the same sentence I’m hungry to learn more. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
In this instance it is Norway’s Tuvaband (Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser) who apparently can see light at the end of the tunnel even if it is a flickering candle 10 miles away.
But there’s a twist. This isn’t a pandemic isolation. Tuva is referring to an internal struggle she’s had with herself, one that manifested itself in the 2019 album ‘I entered the void’, the story of Tuva cutting herself off from society and the effect that process had on her. Meanwhile, the album this (second) track is taken from – ‘Growing pains & pleasures’, which will be released on 21st March - is about trying to find her way back. ‘Post Isolation’ is therefore a song about Tuva’s return to the world of other people where she’s stalked by the shadows of her own fears.
All this shadowy fear is represented by two characters in the video; two ‘Super Tuvas’ battling it out for superiority like Alien vs. Predator or Godzilla vs. that thing in Cloverfield, whatever it was. They represent her inner demons versus her calmer persona. Trouble is I’m not sure which one is the baddie in the video. I thought it was the one with goggles but she appears to win in the end over the more angelic looking one dressed in white. Then I realised that they both wear goggles or glasses, whatever they are, at some time or other.
And the presumed baddie has to take hers off to read a massive sign which says ‘Someone is Following You’. Should have gone to Specsavers.
Those sombre signs do inject some atmosphere into the video, they evoke a sense of 1984 and I was surprised not to see the UK government’s helpful 1980s ‘AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance’ in there, too. Speaking of the 1980s I reckon they filmed in the bit of East Berlin (I think she’s based there) which still looks like it did before the wall came down.
The fight scenes could have been better staged though. They look like some or other fancy new dance sequence on Come Dancing. Or Piers Morgan vs. Meghan Markle.
As for the song, well we know what to expect by now, No-one does ‘atmospheric funereal’ music better than Tuva. Period.
All in all it’s right up there in the obscure Siv Jakobsen World of Random Paranoia. Now that would be the mother of all battles, Tuva vs. Siv.
Post Isolation’ was released on Friday 12th March.