Anton Barbeau: Inside the Dark Mystery Temple of ‘Klaust’
‘Klaust’ is the title track from the third album in Anton Barbeau’s Dark Mystery Temple trilogy.
The song, presented in finest discokraut stylee, is a very loose accounting of a day in the life of Death, who, despite his seemingly German name, lives in England and runs a funeral parlor. Both ‘Klaust,’ the song, and its video combine equal parts mystery and mechanics.
The song started as a quick synth-and-sequencer riff. It was cracked open to make room for a haunting piano piece, which later appears on the Klaust album as ‘In Memoriam.’ The Klaust band – Todd Parker, Jeff Simons and Tom Monson – overdubbed their parts in a single take. Todd’s headphones weren’t working, so his guitar part was played blind. Tehilla Nolan sent her vocals over from the UK, as one does.
The video was put together in a way that, at least for Barbeau, was atypical. Usually, an Ant video starts with a basic lip-sync take, to ground things. In this case, though, Barbeau had Kat and Simone return to the scene of the ‘Dogstar’ video – Anton’s father’s bedroom in the Sacramento house. Not having heard the song until the shoot, K & S improvised their moves as the track played. Three complete takes of this filmed by Ant on an iPhone and done within 30 minutes!
“Knowing that I’d very soon be letting go of the house, I made a point of making as much creative use of my remaining time there. I was constantly writing songs, filming things, taking photos of the light and darkness.” Only days before the house went on the market, the Klaust guys arrived for their shoot. Same story – three complete takes and done in the blink of an eye.
The final shoot took place on the Farm in Auburn where Barbeau lives with his wife, Julia. Usually, they collaborate on videos, but ‘Klaust’ was mostly Barbeau directing his own weird vision. Julia did the final edit, tightening up the pacing and flow. Julia and friend Elia sat in comfy chairs drinking gin… three takes, done in 32 minutes, including the shots featuring Our Star doing his best lip sync.
Abstract and perhaps baffling, the video does serve the song well, Barbeau insists. “The whole ‘Klaust’ album is the oddball cousin twin of the Dark Mystery Temple trilogy, and I hope that the video either pulls a few new people in or pushes them further away than ever!”
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