Los-Angeles based singer and songwriter KP Wolfe is sailing into her solo career, having debuted in 2019 with a spirited and independent style. After a breakthrough turn as part of A Night With Janis Joplin, where she was discovered as a performer, she has been able to refine her style and flourish into an artist in her own right. She’s even collaborated with NOFX and Air Supply, all while crafting her personal ventures.
Wolfe’s latest release, ‘You Can Call Me’ offers a refreshing take on modern love. Tapping into themes such as intimacy, seduction and obsession, Wolfe’s powerful pop tackles complex themes with flair and soulful intensity through a double narrative featuring Adult Video News Female Performer of the Year Tori Black. We delve into five important topics this music video tackles for 2020.
An unconventional cast
Wolfe had the intention of challenging the traditional casting of female models as backdrops to male performers; instead positioning Tori in an emotional role fuelled by infatuation. She says: “I wanted to show Tori as someone involved in a tender, loving and complicated relationship. Besides being a superstar in her industry, Tori is this amazingly sweet and compassionate person and I wanted to cast her in a role that reflects that. As women we can be both sexual beings and the romantic lead. And I think that’s a feminist as fuck dichotomy.”
All-consuming love
Passion, pain and intense cravings manifest into cathartic tears and smeared make-up as a love triangle emerges and reveals the intimacy between Tori Black and KP Wolfe. She portrays the sense of desperation and loneliness that can appear because of the realisation that, as a lover, you now have something to lose.
Inner turmoil
A thread of confusion weaves through the narrative and reveals a sense of inner turmoil for Wolfe. “It’s about that all-consuming type of love” she says. “The kind where you’d do anything no matter the cost. That intimacy that brings out all the desperation and loneliness because now you have something to lose.”
Obsession
Throughout the video, KP Wolfe appears as an onlooker to a passionate relationship. She says it was inspired by the idea that ‘love can easily slip into obsession because you don’t think you’re as valuable without them.’ Part of her reason for creating ‘You can call me’ was part of her journey towards learning that she is ‘enough’ without an audience or public validation.
A double life
Abstract worlds collide with a neon-lit scene and a haunting reality, where thoughts and feelings blur into an unnerving, dreamlike scenario. Wolfe explains, “I wrote this song about the idea that love can overpower rationality and you kind of lose yourself in it. Writing the storyboard, I wanted to flirt with the line between love and obsession.”
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photos / Rick Craft
story / Abi Buller