When Neon Dreams and Matthew Mole released “The Art Of Letting Go” back in mid-January you would’ve been a fool not to bet money on it charting high. A month later and it’s sitting at #7 on the KFM Top 40 and at #20 on the 5fm Top 40, and with the release of the single’s nostalgia-tinged music video, you know that’s just the beginning.
I find that my Millennial heart appreciates this work of art more than any of you will ever know, it radiates fun and I can tell it was a total labour of love. Neon Dreams’ Frank Kadillac confirms my hunch saying, “We had two days to shoot and the team we worked with is like family, so it was fun. It felt like a bunch of friends working on a school project not knowing how it would turn out. But either way we were happy to just be creating art for something we truly cared about.”
The video was directed, shot and edited by Dan Lewis Cole, with Frank co-directing alongside him, while the VFX and animation were done expertly by Liam Cockcroft, but it turns out the video was a true collaborative effort, with Frank telling me that, “Everyone involved brought something special to this video! My manager [Darryl Flood] has a great mind and brought the idea of taking the song in its literal form and spinning it through ’90s and early 2000s nostalgia. He also brought the idea of having a fake room fall apart.”
“I had the idea about putting us into a Windows 95 world and having moving posters like it was Harry Potter,” he laughs. “Everything that feels pop punk is Dan and Adrian because they really know that world the best! Pop punk poster walls! And Liam took our ideas and brought it to a whole different level of creativity with the VFX.”
The Harry Potter-like moving posters, conceptualised by Frank, on the makeshift bedroom wall are what make this video for me (I even spotted a sneaky Fokofpolisiekar one behind Matthew). Frank is candid about the other mainstream band posters (Green Day, Nirvana et al.) of musicians that he holds dear to him saying, “I think I’ll always be influenced by the bands that changed my life because they showed me the path I’m on now.”
This wholly positive experience, both recording the track and filming the video, radiate in every frame and alongside Matthew Mole, Neon Dreams have given me one of my favourite videos of 2024 so far.
“The most unique thing about working with Matthew was just how easy and fun it was,” Frank smiles. “Songs only sound this good when people genuinely click and he’s a great person to create with and also a super talented human.”
Watch the video below and check out Neon Dreams’ tour dates here.