Blur 'Lonesome Street' by Ben Reed

Ben Reed matches Blur in full-on Britpop mode with the Phoenix Fly Line Dancing Group Of San Francisco, in his very charming promo for Lonesome Street, from the band's new album The Magic Whip. 

Ben's ability to find interesting and surprising imagery to bond with the track at hand is much in evidence in a video which starts with a single performer - Philip from the aforementioned San Francisco-based fitness class - and his boombox, eventually joined by a female partner, and finally backed by a whole gymnasium of Chinese line dancers. A meeting of East and West that works delightfully...

BEN REED:

"Blur wanted a video that was simple and reflected the Chinese influence on the new record. Obviously Chinese line/square/fitness dancing is pretty well known and with good reason as it's just great. So I pitched a video that would express the track through this style of group movements.

"When I was looking online for dance clips to show everyone, I came across Philip and the SFCLD group by chance and recut some of their clips to the track purely as an example. Everyone really became entranced by Philip's moves and his very personal fusion of various types of dance and how harmoniously they reflected moments in the song.

"After a couple of calls and emails we were in San Francisco eating dinner together and discussing dancing and importance of Blur on British culture"

"Given that our turnaround was tight, there was a one of those half jokes about 'why don't you get the guys from the reference video to be in it', and from then on the whole project seemed to hang completely on Philip and his team and their interest in a project imagined without them even knowing.

"After a couple of tentative calls and emails back and forth we were in San Francisco eating dinner together and discussing dancing and importance of Blur on British culture. It all had the rushed urgency and incidental logic of a dream; simultaneously petrifying and sublime.

"All the dancers involved have full time jobs, so our rehearsal time was limited but everyone threw themselves wholeheartedly into it and together we made something sincere and human, perfectly fitting a new Blur track."