Kate Cooper and Damon Cox make up the duo who form An Horse, a hip indie rock band from Australia. An Horse has been on and off the scene since 2007, and Kate Cooper recently came out with her self-entitled album, Cooper. In 2008, An Horse’s single “Postcards” was featured in a Mercedes-Benz TV advertisement.
“Postcards” is about the tumultuous cycles through which relationships travel. The video for “Postcards” starts with the band members of An Horse painting a body shape on a craft table. The band constructs this body – from the vessels up – by hand, drawing and painting paper organs, bones, skin, and clothes.
“Postcards” was created using the stop-motion technique of filmmaking (think “Gumby”), meaning that pictures were taken of the band creating the body and then spliced together to create a video. The pacing of the “Postcards” video is impeccably done, with the rapidity of the song matching the speed at which new images flash onto the screen.The concept for the “Postcards” video is genius when you take into account the actual lyrics of the song.
“Postcards” is meant to be/can be taken as the salute to an ending relationship, where each person walks away as a newly created being, composed of all of the words, letters, and experiences shared in the relationship.
The music video mirrors beautifully this mentality. As the band creates the body, the music reveals that – even though the speaker may not necessarily want it to be so – the speaker’s entire being has been changed by the relationship, and s/he will always carry this new self.
Watch the video below and decide for yourself. Is An Horse’s video for “Postcards” a good match to the song, or too outlandish to be taken seriously? Leave us a comment below to tell us what you think!