LVL UP - Blur

What this video is

Released March 23, 2017, the video accompanied 'Blur,' the second track from LVL UP's Sub Pop debut Return To Love (2016) — the New York band's major-label breakthrough after years on the DIY Double Double Whammy imprint. The clip arrived as LVL UP embarked on their first UK and European headlining tour, culminating at Primavera Sound. The video's aesthetic — solitary protagonist, snow-blanketed suburban settings,…

Why it matters

A defining document of mid-2010s New York lo-fi indie rock at the moment of its Sub Pop crossover. The video's stripped aesthetic and solitary-character grammar codified a visual language for emotionally literate, post-internet sad-boy indie — influencing how the genre represented interiority on…

The director

Ryan Schnackenberg is a Brooklyn-based director with a background in collaborative short film work. He co-developed the concept for the 'Blur' video with LVL UP guitarist Mike Caridi, drawing on a shared college-era history of writing lonely-character…