Premiere: Gianni Paci plays ‘The Game’
The alternative musician struggles with pain and climbing out of the darkness in his new video.
We are just fleshy vessels shifting from one tortured state to the next. We may shed flecks of skin or completely rotten chunks of ourselves, but most misery becomes a shadowy incarnation of reality, trailing us all the days of our lives. Always destroying convention, NYC alternative tuner Gianni Paci juggles his pain with a new song and video called “The Game,” gurgling with manic production and his faint, ghost-like murmuring. “Everybody’s watching you, and they wanna be entertained,” he rips open his chest to unleash the words that chomp and lick at his shell. “Show ’em how you stumble cause they wanna see you fall / They got your mind and body, and now they want your soul.”
Paci deals enticingly with surrealist introspection, his vocal clawing from another dimension altogether in some cosmic retribution. The accompanying visual, premiering today, sits comfortably in such a tormented performance arena. He’s both suffocated in limbo, unable to even hear or understand his own cries, and exposed to the sharp, unrelenting sunlight right out in the avenue. “She reassured me not to fret / I must have misinterpreted,” he later constructs the fantastical visage now striking him with ripened wisdom. “The party that she represents is looking out for my interests,” he wavers ever-so slightly before true, full enlightenment washes up and over him. Consequently, the famous blue-haired lady from “Honest Thing” descends upon him once again to douse the flames and gift him new-found liberation and a will to never succumb to his own demons
“I wrote ’The Game’ at a time when I felt backed into a corner. But what was interesting about that moment of inspiration is that instead of feeling intimidated or helpless, I was actually sort of amused by the familiarity of the situation,” he explains to B-Sides & Badlands over email. “I remember reading a story years ago about a woman who was kidnapped and how she managed to escape by seducing her kidnapper. So, there is a similar feeling here, on a certain level: having to perform some kind of song and dance to try and wiggle out of a dangerous situation. But when you’re playing with fire, you can’t be afraid of getting burned.”
Through his pain, the unspeakable gruesome kind, Paci uncovers a pleasure he’s never known.
Watch below:
Photo Credit: Ryan Jay
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