Esthero - That Girl

What this video is

Released in June 1999 as an unissued promotional single from Esthero's debut album Breath from Another (1998, WORK Group/Sony), 'That Girl' emerged at a transitional moment in Canadian alternative music, when MuchMusic was actively championing homegrown artists whose aesthetics bridged trip-hop, neo-soul, and art-pop. The album is now regarded as a trip-hop classic, and the video's surrealist alien-isolation…

Why it matters

The video is a canonical artifact of Canadian late-90s trip-hop visual culture, demonstrating how the genre's themes of alienation and longing could be literalized through surrealist set design. Its nomination for MuchMusic's Cinematography of the Year award signals its recognition as a…

The director

Patrick Hoelck (born September 7, 1968, Santa Monica, California) is an American filmmaker and photographer based in Los Angeles and New York City. He began directing music videos in his mid-teens in New York City during the emergence of hip-hop, going on to…