Actress and singer Soko has laid down years of groundwork in her native France, but she’s now looking to expand her audience stateside. With an assist from Community Music — the label founded by Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe and Ima Robot — for both her recently released I Thought I Was an Alien LP and the forthcoming My Dreams Dictate My Reality, she should have more than a fighting chance. The VHS-shot short film above offers an able assist as well, setting a charming narrative to a pair of songs: the unreleased “Monster Love” featuring Ariel Pink, and Alien‘s “I Just Want to Make It New With You.”
Set to humble-yet-pretty bedroom pop, the Soko-directed clip follows a well-meaning monster’s attempts to find romance in a city full of regular humans (and the occasional mermaid). His razor-sharp claws and horrendous teeth make him an unlikely candidate for love, and he nearly strikes out. But after a sad stroll through Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood (note the wall from the cover of Elliott Smith’s Figure 8), he meets a woman who’s clearly dealing with the same setbacks. As their newfound beauty begins to melt away the superficial ugliness, we discover that the young woman is Soko herself.