Video premiere: String trio Toechter with ‘Charms’

Toechter comprises of musicians Lisa Marie Vogel, Katrine Grarup Elbo and Marie-Claire Schlameus. Classically trained, they explore the boundaries of their acoustic stringed instruments by manipulating sounds with unusual techniques, electronic effects and pedals.

Of the video, the group says, ’Using a mix of real world landscapes and AI-generated landscapes, we follow a woman on a symbolic journey to a quarry, which explodes. These digital and real world landscapes — large, pastoral landscapes, thick forest and coastal cliffs merge into each other – the real giving birth to the digital, and vice versa as the character’s journey continues.

’The film was shot across historically sacred locations in the South Downs. The ancient yew trees that you see in the film are some of the oldest trees in Britain. Yews were historically used by both Druids and Pagans as places of worship, and are associated with longevity and fertility. They were seen by the Druids as being immortal, able to grow their branches down into the earth to form new trees which twist together surrounding the original trunk. Kingley Vale, where we shot is one of the few major groves of yews remaining today.’

The video was produced by Philipp Johann Thimm and Toechter. Charms features on Toechter’s upcoming album Zephyr, to be released on 1 April 2022.