Drab Majesty - ＂Ellipsis＂

What this video is

Released April 16, 2019, 'Ellipsis' is the lead single from Drab Majesty's third album Modern Mirror — a conceptual record reinterpreting Ovid's myth of Narcissus through the lens of modern technology and science fiction. The song thematically addresses the anxious wait for a digital reply — the ellipsis of a messaging app — as a metaphor for contemporary courtship. This framing places the video squarely within a…

Why it matters

'Ellipsis' is a landmark single in the 2010s darkwave revival, demonstrating how artists in the Dais Records ecosystem synthesized 1980s new wave and post-punk aesthetics with contemporary production values and conceptual ambition. The video's VHS-aesthetic visual language became a recognizable…

The director

Thomas McMahan is an experimental filmmaker based in Los Angeles. His music video directorial credits include works for Drab Majesty ('Ellipsis', 2019), Emma Ruth Rundle ('Arms I Know So Well', 2014), Angels Dust ('Funeral', 2015), and Marissa Nadler ('Blue…