SAY YOU LOVE ME (2020)

The death of a romance is always a horrid, bleak thing.

Time turns lovers into memories. Constant companions into silent text message conversations.
Plans for the future become haunting reminders of what could have been.

Joy once found in the sharing of humble mundanities - visiting the grocery store, cooking dinner, doing the laundry - is supplanted by an emptiness, a constant reminder of the person who isn’t there anymore.

So many of us endure this singular pain.
Some of us inflict it. Some of us receive it.
Many of us do both.

No matter the cause or the antagonist, it is always an experience which diminishes a bit of our inner spark.

We walk away cut apart by the ordeal.
Half a person. Still missing our best friend.

”The video for Say You Love Me explored a possibility that I’d thought about for some time,” Riley says. “The idea that you could spend time with someone you loved, even after they were gone.”

In the music video, Riley’s android protagonist is separated from his lover by the veil of mortality.

“Death was an extreme metaphor for what happens when you lose someone you love. After a breakup, when communication ceases and you part ways, the mourning is quite akin to that which takes place when a loved one dies. You know you’ll never see them again, not the way it was.”

The composition itself took inspiration from 90s R&B, synthwave, and chanson. Featuring eclectic instrumentation - a Minimoog Voyager for synthbass, snare drum topped with a cymbal for a special acoustic attack, and stacked vocal harmonies - the track was another stylistic departure for Riley, far from the joyful glam of Brighthead and Tabula Rasa.

Featured prominently in the music video was Viani Marie, a burlesque performer who won the lead role after a casting call. “(Viani) was a ball to work with,” Riley says. “Consummate professional. Hilarious, gracious. And her mid-century fashion sense was perfect.”

In that vein, the dreamlike atmosphere of the video set Kurt & Viani in a noir-themed, 1950s world. Bolstered by the kind assistance of Ithaca, NY businesses - Pastimes Antiques, Angry Mom Records, and Cinemapolis - the video had five separate shooting days, in as many locations, and featured visual effects & chroma key compositional work done by New Vine Records.

Composition, arrangement, lead/backing vocals, electric guitars, video editing: Kurt Riley
Synthesizer: Charlie Jones
Bass synthesizer & drums: Tyler Flewelling
Synthesizers: LunaKyrics
Mixing/engineering/mastering, color correction/VFX: New Vine Records
Videography: John Carter
Performance: Viani Marie
Graphic Design/Cover Artwork: Kurt Riley