The superb, smoky-voiced Brooklyn based blues artist SARI SCHORR ought to have been touring the United Kingdom this week — instead she depicts the lonely lockdown of New York City on her own iPhone in an evocative video.
“I was inspired to hopefully portray how extraordinary times reveal the precious gifts of an ordinary life,” Sari explains as the disquieting images become a backdrop for her track: ‘Ordinary Life’ that was recorded back in 2015 with Henning Gehrke and Bill Alexander.
‘Ordinary Life’ is taken from her 2016 breakthrough debut album ‘A Force of Nature’ which we said was filled with: “tension and traction” and her voice was: “delivered with radiant energy.” The album was produced by the legendary British Blues pioneer Mike Vernon ( Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green.)
Sari’s song was wistful in 2016. Today, with 167K confirmed cases of coronavirus and over 16,000 deaths (nytimes) in the City, her song has taken on a powerful meaning, and coupled with her new visuals, shot & edited by the musician herself, it’s clear the citizens of The Big Apple have had to make extraordinary sacrifices to save lives.
“I shot all the footage with an iPhone 7 Plus in New York City,” says Sari, “the video was edited on a MacBook Pro in Final Cut X.”
“These impaired days have taken us far from normality,” says Sari, “I am detached from everyone, yet I feel more connected to the strangers hidden behind cotton and latex. Our differences are masked as we stand apart, but united in our struggle to find beauty in our ordinary lives.”
This video-song is an eloquent reflection on an extraordinary moment in time when ordinary lives become anything but ordinary…
And now ordinariness is all we wish and pray for …