The Beautiful Fear Releases New Video 'Doll's Eyes Lifeless Eyes'

The Beautiful Fear (aka Matthew Bannister) has released "Doll's Eyes Lifeless Eyes", the second video and opening track off of his upcoming double album The Waltz of the Moonshine Blind, due August 28. The video abstractly details the struggles of mental
health and breaking the cycle of addiction.

Watch the new video!

Six years sober this month, it's been a transformative journey for the Brooklyn/Miami-based, English producer/musician. Having spent some time in rehab, he not only re-connected with himself but also came to find expression in his music for darker traumas concerning ego, deceit, guilt, shame, denial, faith, and sexual abuse. The result is an assemblage of songs that are vulnerable and raw, yet possess a vast, beautiful, and ethereal sense of sweeping space and emotional depth.

"Doll's Eyes Lifeless Eyes", operate as a synopsis of sorts that echo the album's overarching themes while also exhibiting an extraordinary musical dynamic that range from distant ethereal soundscapes to thunderous crescendos. Augmenting the aural message is a powerful and unconventional video/conceptual short film, which premiered with Ghettoblaster. The minimalist piece expresses a profound sense of hopelessness and defeat which can often accompany the depths of depression. Dazzling color, muted apparitions, and gravity-less oceans alternate in a hypnotizing visual dance punctuated by macabre, Francis Bacon-esque self-portraits of the artist himself. The result is almost 8 minutes of vividly searing abstraction, perfectly married to the sonic landscapes and arc of the composition. Bannister further describes:

"Visually, I worked to re-create a certain memory that is incredibly painful and self-destructive. It's about failure and the inability to take a U-turn, regardless of how blatantly obvious the signs are. Having said that, it is very important to me that the work is very open to interpretation. I hope that anyone can find themselves in it."

The Beautiful Fear's forthcoming double album, The Waltz of the Moonshine Blind, will be released August 28 and thematically builds a rich, contemplative mosaic from the shards of the past into something redemptive. Emotions are layered, etched and textured "cine-manically" while wrestling with an ambiently hopeful yet atavistic longing. But there's more to it than just a spontaneous confessional.

"The work shows that there is hope. That there is a way to slip outside of the circle, the dance, the charade, the Waltz," Bannister states. "That hope can be for anyone in the circle of self-abuse, whether that be a substance or a relationship."

A gifted creative as well as musician, Bannister's accomplishments include being named one of 'The World's Top Creatives Under 40′ by Wallpaper*, 'Avant Guardian' by Surface, and the creative agency he co-founded has won many awards, including an Emmy®. He is even credited as one of the inventors (along with Michel Gondry) of the concept of 'bullet time' (The Matrix). He has taught at Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, Cornell University, and the graduate school at Princeton University.