(Johan) Israelson was previously here almost two years ago, with a song, ‘Brother’ and again with a video made by Mina Oldmark, whom we acknowledged jointly as “experts at generating, imagining and telling stories.”
He and she return with a new song, ‘Legacy’, along with another intriguing video. The brother doesn’t show up in this song, but Israelson’s mother, sister and father do, and it’s all a little mysterious as he professes his love for all of them while hinting that he doesn’t feel worthy of that love, even though “we’re quite the same you know”.
It’s all about legacy where politicians are concerned these days, we can see it in Trump, Putin and Starmer right now, but this legacy seems to hang on familial relationships and their values. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for something else, like military forces’ camaraderie or even the codes amongst thieves and other villains. There is a single line that suggested that to me: “Saving time for the things we should have killed”, which doesn’t seem quite to fit the rest of the song.
Ultimately, I have to profess that I simply don’t know. You could debate the meaning for hours. For sure it is very atmospheric, and in a slightly old fashioned way, as if it could be the background track to an episode of The Twilight Zone from the 1960s.
And the video is equally distinctive, hazy with multiple overlays. Much of the action seems to be set around the 80th Street – Hudson Street station on the IND Fulton Street Line of the New York City Subway in the borough of Queens. Lord knows why. Perhaps Mina is a train spotter like her compatriot Solblomma.
Strange, but highly effective.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johan.israelson.3
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanisraelson/
Video and image by the artist Mina E Oldmark.
