Exclusive: Watch Salena Godden’s ‘Under the Pier’

Spoken word artist Salena Godden has kicked of 2017 with the release of a video for ‘Under the Pier’, a piece from her 2016 album LIVEwire.

Shot on location in Hastings, East Sussex in November 2016, the video was filmed, directed, and edited by Jordon Scott Kennedy of Idle Work Factory, and accompanies a live performance at the BBC Radio Theatre.

Kennedy said of the project:

“I jumped at the chance to work with Salena. Her words in particular have the habit of conjuring up imagery that takes us to a specific place and time, and even then, we are left looking forwards, and hopeful, rather than nostalgic or regretful. Behind the scenes she has a way of carrying this spirit at all times, and she made my job fairly easy. “Can you just stand there and think about Salena stuff? Yep. That’s perfect. Cut. Fucking doddle. Pub?”

“She spent the day showing me around her hometown, which became a blank canvas for me. Her enthusiasm for her roots had all kinds of ideas rushing through my head. I think it could be quite easy to be overwhelmed by her explosive lust for life. There’s definitely something special about the lass, and you feel that listening to LIVEwire.

“Getting to know her, I quickly learned that she isn’t one of these people who performs or plays a character. She’s just a live wire through and through, and with her she carries a sense of mischief and unpredictability as though she lives to take us by surprise.

“I found her mesmerizing and I didn’t want to restrict her by improvising a heavy visual narrative or by overthinking the concept. I found her charisma alone was enough to take us home to her most personal thoughts and memories. And when you find such charisma, it seems a waste to disrupt its natural rawness.

“Within a seeming lapse in concentration, or consciousness, we had shot two videos in a matter of three hours. That says it all really about the creative force of nature that is Salena Godden. She lit the fire, I just let it happen.”

We loved the video here at TSOTA. Check it out below! And get your copy of LIVEwire from the Nymphs & Thugs website.