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Watch a Culkin Brother Wander in Spiritualized’s Gritty, Existential ‘I Am What I Am’ Video

Spiritualized, "I Am What I Am," 'Sweet Heart Sweet Light,' Rory Culkin, AG Rojas, video

Jason Pierce might have embraced a newfound comfort, but his Spiritualized project’s latest video (via Dazed Digital) illustrates just about the opposite. From 2012’s excellent Sweet Heart Sweet Light, the skronk- and gospel-touched psych-blues of “I Am What I Am” has some of Pierce’s more centered, self-assured lyrics: “I am the tide that pulls the moon,” he insists. The clip from director AG Rojas, whose previous work includes Purity Ring’s “Lofticries” and Jack White’s “Sixteen Saltines,” follows a character who is hardly the moon, let alone the tide — he might as well not exist. Played by Rory Culkin, the younger brother of Macaulay and Kieran, the long-haired young man moves through a small town outside Bakersfield, California, and nobody — not his mom, not some guy watching porn — seems to be able to see him. As you might expect, this leads dark places, but the way the video combines the preternatural with gritty realism keeps it all from being just depressing.