“The Knowing” is delightfully confusing

By jamie di rosario-connor · Daily Trojan

Posted December 2, 2011 at 5:04 pm in Blogs, Open Mic

Abel Tesfaye’s musical experiment The Weeknd is due for another mix tape any time now. And while the world waits for the follow-up to the critically acclaimed and sonically brilliant Thursday, Tesfaye has indulged his fans with something that will definitely hold them over until the mix tape’s release date.

As musically striking as his records are, the music video to “The Knowing,” off of his first recorded mix tape House of Balloons, is similarly visually captivating — and even thought-provoking.

At an astounding eight minutes, the video is more of a fantasy epic, set to Tesfaye’s ironically severe production and lyrics. Mikael Colombu, the director of the work, combined startling, seemingly incoherent imagery and special effects shot in “2D Jankyvision” to create a piece of art that is moving — but you’re not really sure why.

And while its hard to make out most of the video, it seems to be loosely based on Ethiopian history. Stress the “loosely.” Between the random images of planets, medusa-like women and beating hearts the real message of this video is veiled heavily behind some hard-core modern art.

A look at the lyrics makes it even harder to figure out:

Take a look at what you did / You probably thought that you’d break my heart / You probably thought that you’d make me cry / But baby it’s okay / I swear it’s okay / I know everything

Here’s to wishing we knew everything about this video.

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