Jehnny Beth has unveiled a video for French Countryside.
The minimalist clip was shot in France and captures an emotionally vulnerable Beth performing under a spotlight.
The poignant track, meanwhile, was co-penned with the XX's Romy Madley Croft and longtime collaborator Johnny Hostile, who also directed the video. It appears on the Beth's debut solo album, 'To Love Is To Live', released in 2020. She said:
"This is the song that caused me the most issues. Up until the last week of mixing we didn’t have a version I was happy with, but I am very proud of it now. I almost didn’t put it on the record because it is so close to the bone it almost feels too self indulgent, but it was my intention to write a song that felt more vulnerable than anything I had ever written before.
"Romy was a huge influence for me to be able to do that. It’s a promise song, I wrote the verses on a plane as I was convinced it was going to crash. I was making promises to myself about what I was going to do differently if I survived. Death has been very present in my mind during the process of writing this record. It all started around Bowie’s death."
Croft also commented on the collaboration: "She played me the beginning lines and they were so instantly visual and different to anything I'd heard her say before, it was instantly a beautiful place to write from and explore. It felt like her guard was dropping for a moment and she was inviting the listener in to get to know her vulnerable side, but with a sense that this invitation wouldn't last for very long. Hearing the album version made me cry because it felt like it was my friend Camille, as I know her, a window behind the Jehnny Beth that the world sees."
Beth will join Wych Elm, Shopping, Witch Fever, Big Joanie, Sinead O'Brien, Cate Le Bon and Anna Calvi in supporting Idles on select dates of their UK and Ireland tour in May and June.
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