A lo-fi voyage through a psychedelic mindscape, this music video for Metronomy’s ‘Walking In The Dark’ was never meant to be overthought. Designed with intentioned indifference, the piece embraces a playful rawness - melding the band into a stylized 3D universe inspired by the experimental and nostalgic Metronomy Forever aesthetic.
Rather than chase technical polish, the creative direction leaned into a sense of freedom and nonchalance; qualities that sit at the heart of both the track and the album it came from. Metronomy Forever marked a shift for the band: open, weird, and wonderfully unfiltered. This video reflects that ethos, championing instinct over intricacy.
The result? A digital fever dream that embraces its own playful absurdity. With over 3 million views on YouTube, the video was received warmly by fans and critics alike.
Credits
Director – Joe Wright
Creative Direction & 3D – Clara Bacou
3D Artist – Etienne Fagnere
Producer – Mayling Wong
Production Company – Partizan
Director of Photography – Arthur Loveday
1st Assistant Director – Tom Wynborne
Production Manager – Joe Browne
Editor – Thomas Bridgen
Post House – Glassworks
Colourist – Jonny Thorpe
Post Producer – Chloe Ensor
This environment concept art served as the blueprint for the surreal universe behind Walking In The Dark. Inspired by vaporwave internet aesthetics, ancient architecture, and synthetic spirituality, it established the video’s tonal palette: dreamy pinks, sacred golds, and psychedelic symmetry. Part altar, part hallucination, it laid the spiritual and stylistic groundwork for the entire music video.
The floating pillars, golden beasts, and ornamental gardens evoke a digital temple - part myth, part meme. It’s a world where ceremony meets kitsch, where symbolism loops endlessly, and nothing is taken too seriously. This visual set the tone for a music video built on instinct, absurdity, and lo-fi reverence.
One of the standout sounds of ‘Walking In The Dark’ is the Balinese gamelan instrument, specifically the Reyong, a set of bronze gongs played with mallets, traditionally used in ceremonial and ensemble music in Bali. Its ornate golden carvings and mythological creature motifs aren't just decorative, they’re deeply spiritual and symbolic in Balinese culture, often representing protection and power.
For the music video, this instrument appears as both a sound element and a visual totem, grounding the surreal digital world in something real, handcrafted, and culturally rich.
Rather than using this element as an exotic prop, it feels subtly integrated - a nod to the kind of eclectic global references that run through Metronomy Forever as well. Just like the album, the video blends high-art and kitsch, lo-fi and high-craft, Western pop with global texture. The inclusion of the gamelan piece adds a ritualistic, meditative undertone to the opening - a contrast to the saturated chaos that follows.
Each 3D asset created for Walking In The Dark was designed as a sacred object in a synthetic shrine - icons of a surrealist mythology drawn from online culture, Southeast Asian ornamentation, and ornamental maximalism.
Rendered in pink enamel, gold chrome, and ruby glass, this piece blends spiritual ceremony with childhood nostalgia. The elephant, dog, and chimera-like creatures reference sacred animals across cultures, reimagined as surreal relics. Set on a spring-loaded base, it becomes both shrine and toy: a metaphor for seriousness undone by absurdity.
Golden Dogs, Elephants, and Unknown Beasts. These aren’t literal animals - they’re mutations, crossbred from Eastern guardian statues, folk iconography, and over-processed internet filters. Their polished, hyper-smooth forms intentionally reject realism. They are avatars of a fictional world where mythology is remixable and sacredness is aesthetic.
White marble, lilac water, rotary telephones, and lotus flora. Recurring fountain forms anchor the visual world with symmetrical gravitas. Adorned with golden Komodo dragon-inspired beasts and working telephones, they suggest a ceremonial communication device - a hotline to nowhere. The phone motif plays with vintage tech nostalgia, echoing the album’s mood of endless loops and half-finished thoughts.
Drawing from vaporwave nostalgia, Eastern spiritual motifs, and luxury material culture, these forms explore the tension between organic life and artificial display. Glass domes, iridescent shells, and golden flora become symbols of curated divinity - objects that feel ceremonial, but belong to no known belief system.