Minneapolis trio No Bird Sing recently signed with Strange Famous Records, and their debut album Definition Sickness is out now. Like many of their peers from the independent hip-hop scene in Minnesota, No Bird Sing brings a depth to their music beyond the fluff that often dominates mainstream music, and this video—directed by Patrick Pegg and co-directed by Joe Horton—reflects that.
A little about the song and video:
When writing “Apogee,” emcee Joe Horton imagined two eternal beings who are locked in orbit around one another, taking turns sleeping and being awake. During the transition, the two pass each other like ships in the night, sharing a brief moment of collective consciousness before one falls asleep and the other awakens. “Apogee” takes place during one such transition, as the soon-to-be sleeping declares his love and surrender to the soon-to-be awake. In this fleeting moment of lucidity, he tries to tell her about all the beauty and pain she will experience while awake, ultimately finding comfort in the futility of the task.
The video adapts the concept of the song to a couple in a modern apartment experiencing the endless awake/sleep cycle. The awake writes their thoughts onto the sleeping, treating them more like diary than partner. Just before the transition, the awake realizes the danger in what they’ve done and attempts to clean the sleeping. They fail to do so, and the sleeping wakes, covered in writing, not quite sure what to make of the place they find themselves.
