VIDEO PREMIERE | Frank Ene, "I've Studied You"
The fresh & fascinating pop world of Frank Ene; photographed by Steven Ruud.
As we continue to excavate and process the ruins and traumas from 2020, the scope of artistic output remains an extensive trove of light and inspiration that is constantly being both discovered and rediscovered. Consider the debut album from Berkeley artist Frank Ene titled No Longer released via Empty Cellar, a Bay Area gothic portrait of deeply personal Panavision pop that intersects at the poetic precipices of the Serge Gainsbourg and Leonard Cohen schools. Formerly of Pure Bliss and a touring musician with Fresh & Onlys, Frank enlists the Onlys’ own Wymond Miles to contribute guitar work to a grandiose tragic opera vision of sludgy, serious and seismic movements of earth splitting expressions.
No Longer is a record really like no other. Sure one can make many allusory name checked references to troubadour trajectories both tragic and heroic, but Frank Ene stands like a desperado in a dusty wild western set in the Bay. The opening title track recalls the operatic heights of haunting Francophonic half spoken harmonic frequencies set to rollicking rhythms. Ene keeps the intensity raw with heart painted similes that spell out desires and pains like the wrought undertow pull of “Drown”, to illustrating the continuum of life’s origins and endings in the alpha and omega majesty of the mystifying “Flesh in a Womb”. The mystique in the artist’s sound resembles something like a Lee Hazlewood-esque character existing in the current day, bringing a Screen Gems-sized sensibility to modern somber takes on elaborate country-western song suites. Autobiographical recollections of incidents and charged moments surface in “Housing Alcove”, to the closing monster “Ides Underneath” that burrows to the sanctuary of a subterranean safety bunker that churns and twists in a downward descent.
Which leads us to the big production of "I've Studied You" that is given an animated art house visual treatment courtesy of Boy Tillekens. Frank Ene settles into that aloof, trademark raspy delivery with a voyeuristic swagger like a destitute 50s private eye spying their subject from afar. Weary eyes are seen like perusing through gathered information on a lonely computer as disembodied lips sing out the titular refrain amid a hazy city swirling backdrop. Cigarettes are seen smoked outside a window, as we zero in on the subject/suspect applying mascara, gripping a thorny rose and twisting lipstick until it lassos into handcuffs of restraint that bend and break into the void. Boy showcases psychotropic melting images, manifestations of hallucinations in a smoky and liquified mercurial world of mystery, moving mouths and sharply manicured nails. Franke Ene's "I've Studied You" becomes visually imbued into a seedy underworld like a post-modern Raymond Chandler mise-en-scène animated ensemble of intrigue. Undercover liaisons and surrealist strangers stake it out in a spaced out inner-city setting that plays out to Ene's suave beat of galactic noir goth pulp story-songs.
Photo portrait of the artist Frank Ene; phtographed by Steven Ruud.
Frank Ene shared some thoughts on the visual for “I’ve Studied You”:
Boy’s brilliant animation and direction check marks all the themes that make up the No Longer project: despondency, vulnerability, annihilation, silk panties and sharp acrylic nails.
A sitting side view of Frank Ene; photographed by Steven Ruud.
Director Boy Tillekens provided the following succinct insights on the visual:
I'm a Dutch animator and musician (Swain, Orbital Fatigue) based in Berlin, Germany. The video I made for “I've Studied You” is a study of voyeurism in a galactic setting. In a surreal manner, it showcases inner and outer sensuality.
Frank Ene's album No Longer is available via Empty Cellar Records.
Cover art for Frank Ene’s album No Longer; photographed by James Cromwell Holden, designed by Andrew Connors. Photo by Rob Williamson.
The Bay Area’s one & only — Frank Ene; photographed by Arvel Hernandez.