The music video for Night Palace’s new song “Titania” dropped on February 22, 2022. This numerological timing, intentional or otherwise, tells you everything you need to know about this strange and magical track. It’s a tense lullaby. A chorus of ghosts. A fairytale landscape that feels just barely wrong. Throughout the song I kept waiting for the tension to break – for the instrumentals to pour over, for the vocals to burst into a chorus, but the listener is left grasping at empty air. Since “Titania” was written about lead singer Avery Draut’s grandmother, I can’t help but think that this dissonance is intentional – and that it reflects a relationship that is steeped in both love and loss.
Silver haired matriarch in her joyous silver home/Two silver daughters and one son, all her own/Telling filigree secrets, she tucks behind my ears/Stories of her Oberon and music of the spheres
The song opens with light, breathy harmonies. Draut’s vocal operatic training is clear in the calculated vocal layers, as each note lands carefully over the other. The music video shows a line of four people wearing purple shirts and holding gold theatre masks over their faces. Like the song itself, this image is both soft and unsettling. As each new line is sung, a new person lowers the theatre mask from their face and mouths along to the words. In the background, shimmering pink curtains dangle from the ceiling. The whole set has a muted pink sheen to it, like we’re watching a family drama play out inside a mother’s womb. “Beautiful” isn’t the word I’d pick for it. “Intriguing” or “potent” is closer. Shots linger on each face for just a breath too long. The characters’ eyes look just barely vacant as they stare into the camera.
Titania, reclining on a throne of irises/Swan perm loosened into waves of champagne/You are more radiant than ever/In the morning by the window pane
Night Palace uses vivid lyricism to craft a still life of its subject. The supple, rippling vocals work like brush strokes to freeze a moment in time. Night Palace describes a silver haired matriarch named Titania, presumably Draut’s grandmother. We see Titania sitting by the window pane, hair flowing, flowers growing out beneath her. She is the focal point in every room, the sunlight that every plant grows toward. At the end of the day, it’s an exercise in character work – and Titania’s characterization is at the crux of this strange and lovely track.
Whispering lullabies to the dog/Sleeping on the rug in a sunbeam/“It will be so heavenly/to hold you again in a daydream”
