“‘Black Nails’ is taken from video shot while I was traveling around Russia, specifically the cities of Kazan, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. The majority of the video was all shot at a chemical and plastic factory on the outskirts of Kazan. Everything is orange because of enormous smokestacks shooting out massive fireballs that would illuminate the entire forest and the air smelled of poison. It was really quite a scary and apocalyptic place and I have never seen anything quite like it.”
I admit I started watching this video because I wanted to see the “apocalyptic” Russian industrial wasteland, but the song turned out to be worth my time too. It’s grimy and distorted, which goes nicely with the video’s grainy DIY footage and ’90s-style graphics. I’m not quite sure how to describe the overall sound of Pictureplane’s album “Thee Physical,” but a few tracks vaguely remind me of Crystal Castles’ last one.
Also, because I’m a geek for things like this, I did some digging around and Kazanorgsintez seems a likely candidate for the chemical plant in the video.
