With “bittersweet revelation,” longstoryshort didn’t just assert his status as a rising phenomenon in the electronic context–he also proved that the potency of his sound augments with each successive release. longstoryshort’s latest single, “bittersweet revelation” pairs a shrill vocal with gritty bass work and stabbing drops that pound listeners’ speakers with a satisfying fury. The fiery number now gains a visual that serves as longstoryshort’s opportunity to further define the tune’s namesake notion.
Type scrawls out on a black computer screen as the concept video opens. “When business & art become one, the art takes a backseat to politics & profit,” the text states. “Cookie cutter ‘artists’ & companies built on smoke & mirrors can only sustain for so long with hope at times bleak. The true artists still fight to make their mark on the world.”
The video’s female protagonist emblematizes one such artist. The camera follows her unrelenting and unfruitful endeavor to realize her dream of inclusion in the music industry. Scenes that depict other musicians attaining success juxtapose the strife that she encounters in her quest for sonic ascendance.
The visual is a pointed and provocative inquiry about the ethicality of industry practices that closes the same way that it began: with a message. “For those pushing the boundaries…keep pushing” spills across the computer screen. As the music video conveys with razor sharp sense of clarity, longstoryshort has already taken this advice.