Nicolas Michaux Shares Hand-Drawn Music Video For Bittersweet Single “Cancer”
From his latest album Amour Colère, Belgian-born, Denmark-based musician Nicolas Nicolas Michaux has shared the animated music video for his track “Cancer”, literally named after his coming to terms with the passing of two childhood friends from the disease.
“This one’s a brutal song,” says Michaux. “I can’t always sing it because it requires so much strength and focus to perform. Here, as with the other songs, I wanted to stick to reality; to how things happen in real life. In my youth, I saw two close friends die of cancer. I accompanied them and watched them leave. At the time, I didn’t have the words to express so much anger and sadness. Much later, one summer evening, this song came suddenly. I embraced it as it was.”
Entirely in French, Michaux overtly shares the story of “Cancer” overtop steady indie pop guitar melodies and jangling rhythms. Avoiding poetic metaphors, he shares his emotions candidly, “J’ai peur du Cancer depuis que t’as chopé le tien, J’ai peur du cancer même quand ça ne sert à rien” (I’m afraid of cancer since you caught yours, I’m afraid of cancer even when it’s useless) / “Une tumeur aggressive plus agressive que ça tu meurs” (An aggressive tumor, more aggressive than that you die). It’s an interesting contrast, while the dagger of terminal illness is lightened by Michaux’s soothing voice and catchy musicality.
Adding to the juxtaposition, the music video for the song is drawn almost entirely by hand, and was produced by London illustrator and animator Natalya Lobanova. Her minimalist style and warping lines keeps to the song’s straightforward demeanour.
Speaking about the video, Lobanova says: “We worked very collaboratively on this video which I always enjoy. The challenge was creating something that is visually beautiful, but still arresting, visceral, and somewhat literal, to match the meaning and the words of the song. The visual metaphor of crabs was Nicolas’ idea and I thought it was super clever – sufficiently visceral and kind of scary, but not too obvious either“.
Watch the music video below:
