MYRUIN.NET: August 2011

Dear Friends!

We are excited to announce the premiere of our new video for "Long Dark Night" which will take place Monday, 8th of August here on our site and was directed by our good friend and longtime fan of our band, Tor Burrows of Notorious Design.

This latest offering is video number 5 for My Ruin that Tor has directed for us but this time, unlike her usual live performance only style videos, she has created a beautiful world encompassing the band which I have had a hand in bringing to life with her based on the inspiration behind the lyrics of "Long Dark Night" from our current album "Ghosts and Good Stories".

Our new video contains high quality HD live footage shot by Tor during My Ruin's Hammerfest III appearance in the UK earlier this year mixed with footage from our April show at LA's infamous Whisky a Go Go, shot by our friend and former drummer Marcelo Palomino. It also includes some very raw footage I shot of myself in my house with our Sony camcorder along with various pieces of vintage art and film we collected in public domain stock footage. All of which combined help to define the video within it's delicate shadings, hidden nuances and harsh realities.

One of the most special things about the making of "Long Dark Night" is the beautiful footage given to us by filmmaker/photographer Asatuurs Keim of a place called "The Hill of Crosses". For many years now, I have been intrigued and visually obsessed with this magical place located in northern Lithuania. Over the centuries, not only crosses but giant crucifixes, carvings of saints, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought to this place by Catholic pilgrims. The exact number of crosses is unknown but estimates put it over 100,000 back in 2006. For some it is seen as a place of peace and power, for others a devotion and memorial. For me however, it is simply a scene of beauty whose landscape speaks to me on an otherworldly level when I view it's images in photographs. It wasn't until Tor came across the footage shot by Asatuurs that this place began to speak to me subconsciously inviting me to have my own personal connection to it within this song, breathing a new scenery into my language. This is when I decided to reach out to the film maker, introduce myself and let him know about our idea hoping he, as an artist himself would understand my need to include his footage in our video based solely on my words written to him in a letter. I had no idea if he would even respond to me but when he did and so positively, I knew it was meant to be and Tor agreed.

I have said that "Long Dark Night" was written while in an insomnia fueled struggle to find the muse lost in sleepless evenings of losing faith, awake with the inability to create. It is a heavy metal torch song if ever there was one, paying homage to those little slices of death and life after midnight. The title of the song was based on a book given to me many years ago by someone I once knew in another life. The book is called "Dark Night of The Soul" based on the poem written by St John of The Cross and is a metaphor used to describe a phase in a persons spiritual life marked as a sense of loneliness and desolation.

For me, this book has always brought me a quiet comfort over the years and served as a strange yet somewhat sacred tool in the making of many records dating as far back as my days in Tura Satana when I recorded "Relief Through Release". I have no idea why I have been drawn to it but until now, I have never used it's title in a literal way to define the emotion behind my lyrics. It wasn't until I experienced my own long dark night while writing "G&GS" that I felt it described my situation, substituting his devotion to God with mine to music.

The truth is, we had no budget to make this video. We are a DIY band and have always had to figure out a way to do it ourselves. With that in mind, we can say that it was a true labor of love made purely with passion, along with Premiere, After Effects and many long nights of editing and chatting on Skype from └A to the UK while cutting and pasting files, photos and footage into a shared folder in Dropbox and writing each other suggestions back and forth on Facebook. Welcome to the digital age! This video was made with no money but a million dollars worth of creativity and an artistic vision between two women who understand each other, the music one makes and the other one listens to.

That being said, I can honestly say that this is my favorite video we have ever made. Over the years and based on personal experience, I've learned that it really does not take thousands of dollars to make a rad video anymore and nowadays, most rock videos are starting to look like the same rehashed formula thing we've seen a hundred times before in my opinion, so what's the point of being another band jumping on that bandwagon when there is so much technology today that allows artists to do something just as good visually, if not better and for little or no money considering what some of these companies and directors are continuing to charge artists with and w/o the backing of labels to help support them. I wanted this video to be unique in it's technique behind the scenes while capturing the essence of the song's identity by taking the viewer on a musical journey with the idea that a "Long Dark Night" is just a temporal state of mind having to do with time rather than eternity illustrated by words, images and iconography surrounding the human heart and soul within the body.

Below is a little screen shot preview for you with a sneak peek at our new video before it's big reveal! This revelation won't be televised but it will be shown online and shared by those of you who understand and continue to support what we do as a band. Please remember to mark your calendars and save the date to join us for the premiere!

MONDAY, 8TH AUGUST

2011

xo

Mrs M
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