At the height of the COVID plague, when we were all confined to our houses, the lead singer of Black Bordello, Sienna Bordello, would seek refuge by the graves of her family. But even that hallowed place of peace was corrupted by people with no real connection to the area wanting a place to congregate.
The dark and fruitless search for solace shines through Black Bordello’s latest single, “Nunhead”. Standing in a graveyard with barely contained rage, Sienna sings out, “the culture we have left is six feet down.” Garbed as a nun, she slowly goes insane.
Interspersed throughout the video are cutaways to modern life, each with its own real yet dystopian vibe. Is she a nun contemplating society or a socialite wanting the structural escape of a nunnery? “When my dreams have turned to nightmares, and I don’t know what’s true,” she cries.
As the chaos grows within the video, so it grows within the music—near the middle of the song, an almost imperceptible vocal line builds to a mental break. With a tonal shift, we careen into a bombastic outro before quietly fading out. The protagonist-nun centered in a black-and-white Wes Anderson-styled shot, consoling herself in front of the church, fades to black.
Watch “Nunhead” below.
Ben is an advertising Madman who spends his days with words and music. When he’s not writing for his supper, he’s eating it at some of NYC’s most interesting restaurants.
