Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop - Valley Clouds

What this video is

Released March 10, 2016, 'Valley Clouds' serves as a promotional video for the collaborative album Love Letter for Fire (Sub Pop, April 15, 2016), a 13-track duets record by Sam Beam (Iron & Wine) and Jesca Hoop. The video's Chicago bar setting and karaoke conceit grounds an overtly literary folk song in an everyday, democratic performance context — a knowing inversion of the artists' introspective reputations.…

Why it matters

Represents a key artifact of the 2010s indie folk duet revival, pairing two critically acclaimed independent songwriters (Iron & Wine and Jesca Hoop) within the Sub Pop catalog. The video's arthouse restraint — a single near-uncut take, zero scene changes, explicit European cinema influence —…

The director

Erin Elders is a Chicago-based director, writer, and editor who studied film/video at Columbia College Chicago, where he co-founded the band Maps & Atlases. He has directed music videos for artists including Alanis Morissette, Iron & Wine, and American…