"Honest Affection" by Kye Kye, Sunday, January 8, 2022

Fantasize is Kye Kye's second album, and it deals with love in both a tangible and abstract way. Lead singer Olga Yagolnikov Phelan was married to drummer Timothy Phelan during the band's first two records. Kye Kye's debut record, Young Love deals more with spirituality and Fantasize deals more with human relationships. Songs like the record's epic opener, "I Already See It," the contemplative "Seasons," "Glass" or today's song, the second track on Fantasize, show the band at their best.

A PART OF ME JUST ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW.  The music video for Kye Kye's "Honest Affection" was directed by Salomon Ligthelm, who has directed several music videos including a Justin Bieber video and a Little Simz video last year. Kye Kye's video starts off with an exploding plane over the Pacific Ocean in technicolored World War II footage. Next the message "All's Fair in Love and War" shows the scene of Japanese children marching in black and white footage. Then there are scenes of war in Japan. After the title card shows in Japanese and English, we see a young Asian woman walking in what appears to be modern times. We see traditional Japanese architecture and a few scenes of Olga singing. Then we have an apparent romance between a man who seems to be training as a samurai and a girl in the court. All of this is intermixed with scenes of World War II, Olga singing, and scenes of the Japanese temple forest. At the end of the video, the Asian girl is riding in the back seat of a car in the present time (or the 1970s?) and she kisses something in her hand.   

HIDING TO AVOID ANY SIGNALS.  It was either Todd in the Shadows, A Dose of Buckley, or an equally snarky reviewer who points out the impossibility of Nicki Minaj's "Your Love," the song that says "When I was a geisha, he was a samurai/ Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai." The comment was that it was highly unlikely that a geisha and samurai would ever meet, and if they did, he certainly wouldn't speak Thai! I thought about the first part. I'm not a Japanese history buff, so it's probably time to brush up with my favorite history video, ever. Was the Shogun finished by World War II? What story is Kye Kye's video telling? Is the woman at the beginning and the ending the child or grandchild of the samurai/geisha who ran away from the war? Did they escape? Where did they go? Did they both survive? Are they dead at the time of the woman possibly traveling back to Japan to find answers? I guess we can make up our own story with a vague video like this. But part of me feels like it's irresponsible to throw so many breadcrumbs into an obscure music video by an Estonian-American (not Japanese-American) band. 
 


"Honest Affection (Remix A) Official Music Video:
"Honest Affection (Remix B) Official Music Video:





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