Damon & Naomi with Chris Marker: “And You Are There”

Damon & Naomi with Chris Marker - And You Are There from The Wire Magazine on Vimeo.

“And You Are There” is off of Damon & Naomi's forthcoming album False Beats And True Hearts, out 9 May on Broken Horse. They'll be supporting the release with a coast to coast tour of the States in May and June (a London date is in the pipeline)details on this will be posted on their site shortly.

Naomi sent us the message below to accompany the video:
"This song is about the way time can compress when you are lost in a memory, something I have learned a lot about from Chris Marker’s work – his films (La Jetée, Sans Soleil), his writing (Immemory), his photographs.

When the song was finished, I sent it to Chris with a note – since his work had provided inspiration for the song, I wondered, might he in turn have a visual response to it? He sent back this image, with the note:

“Dunno if it fits your pretty Proustian melancholy, but I thought it could... And thanks for linking me to music, the only real art for me as you know (cinema? you kiddin’...)”

"And You Are There"
Like the sunlight falling through a fence
The image comes and goes
Memories flickering within me
Where they are I don’t know

An orange light, a flash of white
Feel the sun, hear that sound within me

The past is but a moving image
It reappears then disappears
And though I can’t understand its movements
It erases all those years

An orange light, a flash of white
Feel the sun, hear that sound within me
And you are there once again

What I carry deep inside me
These feelings come and go
The past I thought was so distant
Flickers like an afterglow
And you are there once again

— Naomi Yang, 2011