Tirzah releases an oddly intimate Crackstevens directed video for new single Devotion

Former Nicer Tuesdays speaker, Akinola Davies, also know as Crackstevens, has teamed up with Essex musician Tirzah on a video for the latter’s woozy, downtempo, Coby Sey featuring new single, Devotion.

Taken from her forthcoming LP of the same name — released by Domino on 10 August — the track is baleful, barely there, and beautiful. Akinola’s video takes a similarly subtle approach, transporting the viewer into the kind of community centre karaoke party that David Lynch could likely get a whole film out of had he been raised in Ipswich rather than Idaho.

“I’ve been a huge fan of Tirzah for a long time now,” Akinola tells It’s Nice That. “Last year I shot a video for Kate Tempest, and she shares management with Tirzah share management. They must have discussed me being a fan. Eventually it got back to me that she [Tirzah] had a project coming up, so we met to discuss it.”

Instilling a music video, of all things, with a genuine sense of intimacy’s odd and occasionally queasy pushes and pulls, isn’t the easiest thing to pull off, but Devotion uses a series of super-tight close-ups to potent effect. This, Akinola says, came about after discovering, through Tirzah and Mica Levi that Barry White was an unlikely influence on the new album.

“The photographer John Goto’s book Lovers’ Rock became a reference point. I wanted to make something about love and the intricacies of navigating relationships.”

He eventually ended up shooting real couples. “In essence,” he says of the Devotion video, “it was showing positive affirmations in relationships. Showing we don’t always have to be in the club to find an intimate moment, that those moments can be at home or amongst friends. Equally, I don’t often see images of people of colour showing tenderness on camera. I wanted to present something else on the spectrum.”

Akinola — who initially rose to prominence as part of Tim and Barry’s Don’t Watch That crew, and has gone on to shoot for everyone from Kenzo to Bianca Saunders — has a strong track record when it comes to music videos. Having impressed with the visuals for Klein’s Marks of Worship and Larry B’s Hit it Right, this latest effort from an image maker who works with a real sense of panache, cements him as a director to trust.