Live Review: Montero finds home in 'Running Race' video

MONTERO has shared the colourful and cutesy animated clip for ‘Running Race’, the third single to be taken off his upcoming album, Performer.

A visual artist on the side of his musical endeavours, Montero’s comic-based style uses anthropomorphised creatures to highlight the universality contained within small human moments and has been brought to life in the track’s visual companion by animator Sean Macnulty.

This background puts Montero in a unique position to execute the full extent of his artistic vision across a range of mediums – and he doesn’t disappoint. Of the track, Montero says that “the song takes place in the story of a master’s apprentice isolated in a magic castle. ‘Running Race’ is about how life is a sports event set in a cosmic stadium, and that we’re all athletes and performers. Pedaling, running, swimming, leaping and flying to achieve our own idealised beautiful victories against repressive inner forces”.  The single’s visual companion, therefore, presents a cosmic landscape populated by Claymation critters that perfectly matches the sense of wonderment and magic that Montero’s music shares.

In a deceptively childlike melody, Montero laments on the track’s chorus that “Deep inside me, no one’s home”. But it might be more accurate to say that, for Froggy, it’s less that no one’s home inside of him, but more so that he doesn’t like what he finds when he looks deep inside. His inner demons - played here by a spooky hand and a crumbling castle - show up out of nowhere, twisting his once contented face into a look of confused sadness as a single tear rolls down his cheek.

Montero’s idiosyncratic blend of psych-pop and the lush orchestral instrumentation of 1970s soft-rock reaches its soaring climax on the track’s bridge as Froggy, having overcome and made peace with his personal darkness, shoots himself into outer-space. When he returns at the end, his inner demons are still there, but he no longer seems fazed by them – they’ve been relegated to the background of his cosmic, wondrous world.

Performer is out February 2nd on Chapter Music via. Inertia – you can pre-order it here.

WORDS BY KYLE FENSOM

IMAGE: Maria Damkalidi

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