ZHU, Yuna - Sky Is Crying

What this video is

Released March 26, 2021, 'Sky Is Crying' arrived during the height of global pandemic lockdowns and was conceived as a lead single for ZHU's third studio album DREAMLAND 2021 (Astralwerks, April 30, 2021). The video directly engages with the psychic toll of 2020–21: lockdowns, digital communication overload, climate anxiety, and collective grief. The collaboration between San Francisco-born Chinese-American…

Why it matters

A landmark example of early-2020s melodic house and electronica, 'Sky Is Crying' demonstrates ZHU's signature cinematic minimalism applied to a crossover register. The track incorporates saxophone (Aaron Leibowitz) alongside Yuna's vocals, marking a jazz-inflected softening of ZHU's typically…

The director

Birdy Ben is a Paris-based creative director and the Founder & CEO of ELMØ (EL MOTION LAB), a Paris-based independent multidisciplinary motion design and animation studio. Birdy Ben's confirmed music video credits include 'Working For It' by ZHU (2015) and…