VIDEO PREMIERE | Flamingo, "Mother"

Cathartic forest outings with Flamingo’s Lavinia Siardi; video still courtesy of UOLLI & Claudio Cescutti.

Returning from their two year sojourn in Japan, Italy - rising Italian pop star Lavinia Siardi of Flamingo regrouped as a full band, announcing the album Komorebi for the WWNBB Collective. A title that loosely translates to the way the sunshine casts beams of light on and through leaves off of trees; Lavinia expands the outfit to include bassist Iulian Dmitrenco and percussionist Giacomo Carlone in a record that meditates on a barrage of complicated experiences whilst advocating for a more inclusive universe. Presenting the video debut for "Mother", Flamingo's Lavinia, Iulian and Giacomo guide us through the Tarvisio forest of reflection, elaborate emotions and enchantment directed by UOLLI, cinematography from Claudio Cescutti, costumes designed by Ambra Tilatti (featuring assists from Mattia Spizzo and Christopher Candotti).

Traversing through the mystically illuminated Tarvisio forest; Flamingo's visual for "Mother" works with the song craft motifs of confrontation and catharsis. Lavinia pens poetic lyrical letters to their parents in a candid expression on the intricate pressures of expectation and the aches that arrive with the inherent autonomy of unbridled ambition. Sections of the misty woods are draped and illuminated in glowing pathways of softly twinkling strings of light that guide Siardi along winding paths of trees, briers and branch. Cescutti's camera follows Lavinia's journey that moves in time to the maudlin guitar strings and deeply pensive synths that orchestrate the punctuated outbursts of affirmation and reckoning that move into a lull before the arrangement explodes into its climactic apex of energy. As the moods and momentum rides down and up and down along a narrative prime for an amusement park dark ride; the finale sees Lavinia, Iulian and Giacomo running out toward a curious orange frame, as the perspective lens zooms out to show the Flamingo trio standing strong amid a breathtaking and jaw-dropping view of the group standing amongst the giants of their surroundings of natural mountainous splendor.

Forest frontiers with Lavinia of Flamingo; courtesy of UOLLI & Claudio Cescutti.

Lavinia Siardi of Flamingo shared reflections on the creations of the Komorebi album, the single "Mother" and how the forestall visual contributions to the song's emotive impact:

Making music has always had a healing role in my life. I make music to understand myself, the world around me and to try and share bits of my everyday feelings with others, searching for some sort of communal experience.

This has never been as true as for the recordings of Komorebi. After many years working solo, I have been lucky to encounter two people like Iulian and Giacomo, with extraordinary sensitivities and an amazing music talent. They helped me put into music the two years I spent in Japan, an incredible but deeply traumatizing period of my life.

I moved there as a 24 years-old naive student, and in two years I quickly had to become an experienced adult, facing challenges I have never even imagined ‘till I moved there. I learned to hide my emotions, my desires and my aspirations in a land where foreign western women are seen as some sort of alien creatures to beware of. Month by month my euphoric Italian character slowly gave way to a submissive attitude, in an attempt of attracting as little attention as possible and blend in a society which doesn’t like outliers. While in Japan I lost my lust for life, but luckily preserved a survival instinct strong enough to make me decide to go back to Italy and start working on a new record. Having Giacomo and Iulian next to me in the process of re-analyzing what happened to me in the last years and seeing them interiorizing [sic] the songs and giving them new life and strength, really made me understand how lucky I was. I had a choice to come back, I had loving people waiting for me and a supportive family ready to welcome me back again. I finally had a band, a real one, where we shared not only the creative process but the entire vision of the project. We wrote songs we were proud of, the most honest and genuine songs we have ever written. Komorebi is my attempt to shout to the world that it’s okay to struggle, to make mistakes, to feel weak and vulnerable. It’s also an invitation to being tolerant and welcoming to who is different, because a single look or gesture can change someone else’s day. It’s a criticism to the extreme right-wing ideologies that are getting more and more followers nowadays. It’s a safe place for the three of us, and we hope it will soon become a safe place for who listens to it.

Video photo still courtesy of UOLLI & Claudio Cescutti.

Flamingo is now a band, and our upcoming album Komorebi is a quest for emotional frankness, tackling many dark thoughts and experiences with all the vulnerability we had, but at the same time always keeping a safe space for hope.

"Mother" is a song about expectations and the feelings of inadequacy that often come with them. We are all constantly exposed to expectations of all sorts, and I feel too often we compromise on who we are and who we want to be just to fulfill such expectations. But even more importantly, those [are] expectations that we create and assign to ourselves. The solution doesn’t lie in satisfying such expectations, but in a liberating crying, that all of a sudden makes us human again in a world that too often asks us to be superheroes. Our friends have gathered for the final chorus; we had curled up in a small room and started screaming as crazy. Such a cathartic moment.

I love how Uolli, the director of the video, has chosen a forest as the location for the song, which somehow gives space and air to the lyrics that I find quite claustrophobic otherwise. The path I follow in the woods reflects the different sections of the song itself, with the landscape changing and evolving together with the tune. I like how Uolli has given a sort of natural, visual representation to the song, and in my head I associate the reverb we use in the song with the wildlife portrayed in the video.

Flamingo’s Komorebi will be available soon via We Were Never Being Boring (WWNBB Collective).