When we last checked in with Valerie Lighthart, the multi-faceted Milwaukee musician was adding to her “By Moonlight” EP trilogy output by releasing a music video for her single “Monster,” which we described as “chilling and unnerving.” Though last year saw Lighthart releasing a new single and more material is now in the works, she’s reaching back to her third “By Moonlight” installment—2022’s Pt. III: The Banshee—once more with a visual complement to the release’s opening track.
Shot and directed by Ella Freigang, the “Backwoods” music video features Lighthart, dressed in fashionable clothing creations designed by Maria Olson, plodding through disproportionately bleak, darkened, and muddy scenery that matches the song’s gloomy overtone. Lighthart explains the intentional clash between wardrobe and scenery:
“‘Backwoods’ explores themes that center on self-soothing through indulging delusions of grandeur, in a vacuum of rural isolation. Through unnerving and distinctively Midwestern imagery, the video has a poetic approach to the narrative, and personal lyrics which explore coming-of-age while clinging to the dark remnants of a missing childhood.”
Before she joins Gerald Walker, Mike Regal, and Will Pfrang And The Good Land Gang on the lineup of Vivarium’s “Milwaukee Day Party” on Sunday, April 14, watch Valerie Lighthart’s “Backwoods” video below.