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After dropping her self-produced debut single, Maya Yenn has followed up with a self-directed and appropriately unsettling music video for tiptoe.
Yenn’s debut single, which was first created as a “spooky beat” went semi-viral on TikTok and amassed over 15,000 Spotify streams within the first month of release. Haunting and breathless, the song’s lyrics imagine a surreal place where the listener finds themselves playing a high-stakes game of hide and seek with the personification of all their fears and anxieties.
“The song is written from the perspective of anxiety so it made perfect sense for the anxiety character to take centre stage in the music video.” Yenn explained.
As the anxiety character, the UK artist can be seen in a grand interior, her eyes are white as she sings directly to the viewer. The final shot feels like it could be straight out of a horror film as Yenn blows out a candle and the viewer is plunged into darkness, making the lyric, “you’re safe until the lights go out” feel even more threatening.
The video was shot at Jacobean mansion, Ingestre Hall in Staffordshire. Now a residential arts centre, the house was formerly the home of many of the previous Earls of Shrewsbury. Yenn explained why she chose the stately home as the shoot location for tiptoe:
“It was absolutely the perfect location for the music video. There are these imposing panelled rooms, huge chandeliers and old portraits hanging from the walls. I just thought, of course the embodiment of all my fears and anxieties would live here.”
The video is filled with unnerving imagery; from the white ghoulish eyes, to blackened teeth stretching out into an unsettling smile, to Yenn’s face emerging from sickly violet water. Even the passing shots of clocks on velvet backdrops seem to carry their own tension.
“Colour and texture is really important in every project and to me, tiptoe’s colours are indigo, ultramarine and violet and the texture is velvet so it was really important that these sensory elements made up the palette for the video. I’m so grateful to James [Cinematographer] and Chris [Colourist] for all their help in making the video happen and getting those details right.”
Director: Maya Yenn
Cinematographer and Editor: James Langley
Colourist: Chris Frankland
Special thanks to Richard Poynton and the Management of Ingestre Hall Arts Centre
Watch the music video here.
For immediate release