Coming off of the release of her recent album Heirloom, Kim Harris has just given even greater depth to her wonderfully fathomless track “Keeper”. Without a doubt, there are profound emotions explored in the song, the piano ballad containing such tenderness and strength. The experience of the video, created by Harris’ partner Olivia Fader, is like watching the singer send love to herself across time and space.
Combining digital and analogue footage of two separate times and locations, the video catches the eye within the first ten seconds- first with the recurring image of Harris’ head framed ghostly in a TV set, and then by strikingly vibrant jellyfish on a field of magenta. The former is footage shot recently around Newfoundland and the latter is from some time ago when Harris visited a Toronto aquarium; the difference of time feels well-established and poignant in Harris’ vastly different hairstyles alone.
The video began with the discovery of an 8mm camera at her father’s house, Harris explains.
“It was the first time I saw my mom on video since she died in 2005, and was extremely overwhelming. Her movements, her laugh, her voice – it was as if she was speaking directly to us through space and time… My partner, Olivia, began making a video for Keeper with that camera almost immediately. She used a little TV from my childhood bedroom and carried it to some of my favourite spots on the land and water surrounding my dad’s home.”
It’s a beautiful pairing of a visual so starkly cold and artificial amongst The Rock’s natural splendour. There are zooms and edits that don’t quite land with the footage, but the atmosphere created is powerful and maintains its hold. Knowing the background of its conception, the video for ‘Keeper’ stirs the heart for one’s family and self alike. The rigid trappings of Harris in the TV against the vastness of the world, the conversation across time, the mournful power of her voice- it’s a gripping dirge pushed out into the universe.
The beauty of watching and listening to “Keeper” cannot be overstated. And while this video may give a new layer to the song for fans, it seems Harris learned the most of all with its creation: “‘Keeper’ was a song that had a large, vague meaning for me, and now exists in holding grief, the essence of my dad and all that he has made, and parts of an old self, created by someone who sees and loves me.”