“In my experience, recording music and playing in various bands over the years means accumulating an impressive array of wayward, broken keyboards that end up cluttering your studio space like some sort of weird invasive plant species. I decided to use the video for “Years” as a sort of Viking funeral send-off for a good number of them. Normally I’d never condone destroying instruments, but these old fellows needed help leaving their mortal coils behind."
- Chris Cunningham (A Ruined 28)
Watch the video for "Years," via New Noise Magazine, here:
Chris Cunningham, the singer/songwriter/instrumentalist behind A Ruined 28, has made a career out of crafting art that’s as accessible as it is cathartic. As the frontman, guitarist, and percussionist for Seattle-based rock band Ravenna Woods, the band inverted the acoustic instruments, bracing harmonies, and emotionally contemplative lyrics of roots and folk, combining those elements with the fiery anger of punk rock and a wall of immersive percussiveness. Around 2016, Chris began exploring visual as well as sonic art, honing his skills as a filmmaker in the form of his alter ego, Dark Details. In the last four+ years, Chris/Dark Details has made music videos for Kool Keith, Lemolo, Lotte Kestner, and Planet B, among others. He attributes his visual style to myriad cinematic influences (John Carpenter, Michel Gondry), while he acknowledges his late uncle, internationally renowned dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham, as the inspiration for the sense of action, movement, and choreography present in Dark Details’ body of work.
For the first time, Chris is in full charge for A Ruined 28, writing all of the songs and playing nearly all of the instruments, solo. At first blush, this project sounds light-years removed from most of Chris’s previous musical output. Concise, synth-based melodies replace washes of powerfully-strummed acoustic guitars, and that patented Ravenna Woods tsunami of thundering drums takes a back seat to electric drums and percussion. But what Chris has crafted with A Ruined 28 is a logical progression, and this new project puts a welcome spotlight on two of Chris’s greatest strengths as a musician—his rich baritone voice, and a gift for writing strong, catchy songs. It’s the best of all of Chris Cunningham’s worlds, with anger honed to an elegant razor-sharpness, Chris’s Elvis Costello-tinged vocals resonating moodily, a cinematic sense of stripped-down atmosphere, and plenty of compulsive melodies to seal the deal.
Video directed by Dylan Priest. Edited by Dark Details. Lighting by HTY.Studio.
"Years" is the first single off of an upcoming release, with more details to be announced shortly.
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