Mirel Wagner - Oak Tree

What this video is

Released May 2014 as the lead single from Wagner's Sub Pop debut When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day, 'Oak Tree' arrived at a moment of renewed critical interest in Nordic minimalist folk. Wagner — Ethiopian-born, Finnish-raised — occupied a singular position in the folk landscape, her work drawing more from the primeval darkness of American murder ballads and death-folk than from commercial…

Why it matters

A landmark artefact of 2010s death-folk and Nordic minimalist songwriting. The video's zero-edit, near-black single-take structure is exceptionally rare in commercial music video production and aligns the work with slow-cinema traditions (Tarr, Akerman) rather than MTV-era clip conventions.…

The director

Mirel Wagner (born 3 December 1987) is a Finnish singer-songwriter, born in Ethiopia and raised in Espoo, Finland. Her self-titled debut appeared in 2011 on Finnish indie label Kioski; she signed to Sub Pop in 2014. Aki Roukala is Wagner's manager, confirmed…