Video: Tracey Thorn "It's All True"

Tracey Thorn has long been one of my favorite vocalists and with Everything But The Girl's hiatus carrying into a sixth year I was pleased to find that "It's All True", the first single from Thorn's forthcoming solo album Out Of The Woods, delivers the electropop goodness that I could only dream of a few short months ago.
The song's video is a single continuous shot that finds a seated Thorn facing us in a room filled with desks and uniform office drones adorned in grey suits. We never see much of Thorn as the director reduces her to a graphic element instead taking the standard pop approach of showing the star in close up as the focal point. Not only does this suggest that Thorn is one of her audience, often dismissed by critics with the subtle "coffeehouse crowd" insult, who are represented here literally as special effect created clones but the approach echoes the emotional distance often associated with Thorn's vocal delivery. As the video develops the clones are given chances to shine and express themselves individually with dance flourishes and momentary surges of color refuting the simple dismissal of Thorn's audience by demonstrating that they are more than an extension of their homologous environment but have soul and personality that is unique to themselves. The visual style of the video, most specifically the final moments, mirrors that of a number of viral videos in which people represent pixels in recreations of 80s video games which is not unlike the production team's loving reinterpretation of early 80s club music:



: Tracey Thorn's Out Of The Woods is out March 20 and Tremble Clef's inspired review of the album is a must read. Thorn's music can be previewed at her myspace which includes some delightfully endearing blog entries.