Earlier this month, local indie band KNOTTS released the music video for their melodic and ariose track "Moon Faced Girl" off the band’s EP, “Good Glasses.”
The music video was filmed at Mount Storm Park in Clifton as well as French Park in Amberley Village by video artist, filmmaker, and screenwriter Francesca Marcotte Rietz, along with director of narrative fiction and experimental work Matt Gilliam, and multimedia artist Maya Earl.
“The song is emotional and nature is so good at being moody,” Adalia Powell-Boehne, the vocalist and songwriter of KNOTTS tells CityBeat. Powell-Boehne also plays acoustic,electric guitar and synth in several of the band’s tracks.
“The water, the trees we filmed in the video reflect lines in the song that also reference nature, the moon, and ‘where the green grass grows,’” she continues.
“Moon Faced Girl” was inspired by Powell-Boehne’s sister-in-law who was dealing with the loss of her mother during the pandemic.
“I just felt so many things and I was just sitting at the guitar and writing about her,” Powell-Boehne says. “She's the 'moon face girl' and the song is for her, because we were in quarantine I couldn't go to her house or hug her.”
“It also applies to everyone who listens, it's a song asking people not to be hardened by the world and not to let awful things change us in negative ways,” she continues. “It’s a song about choosing hope.”
Rietz, the director of the video, describes the video as a platonic love letter to everyone watching.
The music video was filmed the weekend after Thanksgiving, and Powell-Boehne said it was important to everyone involved that it was filmed safely and outdoors, despite how cold it was outside.
See the video below:
Along with Powell-Boehne, KNOTTS has consisted of keyboardist and bassist Antoine Franklin, lead electric guitarist Jordan Wilson and percussionist CJ Eliasen since the band's founding in 2017.
The sound of KNOTTS is dreamy and honest, with precise and personal lyricism.
“Whatever I put out there, I want it to be evocative and I want it to be relatable,” Powell-Boehne says. “I don't just want to frivolously write a song that means nothing.”
As the band’s Spotify bio articulates, knots are shapeshifting, detangling and re-tangling, fluid in dynamic; the stylings of KNOTTS embody these attributes. It’s not easy to pin KNOTTS into a single genre. The band has ventured into the synth-y and glimmering realm of dream pop, the minimalistic sphere of indie-folk, and is currently working on a rhythm and blues/dance record.
While KNOTTS avoids a singular genre categorization, the overt vulnerability of their lyrics and impassioned tone is a common thread throughout their discography.
KNOTTS is planning a busy year. The band recently wrote three songs for the Facebook Sound Collection that will be available on Spotify soon.
They also wrote music for Queen's Village in collaboration with the Cincinnati Art Center's collaborative exhibition and programming series FIERCE Black MotHERstory Exhibition, which will run March 26-April 16.
If you are interested in (virtually) attending a live performance, check out KNOTTS’ performance on Facebook Live at 7:30-8:30 p.m Saturday, March 13, presented by the Longworth-Anderson Series.
The band's album "Good Glasses" is available for streaming and purchase on Spotify, Bandcamp, and the KNOTTS website.