Four in the Morning, Heading to Vaxholm

Autumn brings out the quiet singers. The loud, beat-driven pop of summer gets set aside and suddenly everyone has a piano and a tasteful video shot in soft light, signaling vulnerability without risking anything. Most of it is tender in the bad way. Anna Leone is a different case.

Her video for "My Soul I" was filmed on a ferry at four in the morning, on the way to Vaxholm in Sweden, chasing the particular light that exists just before sunrise. She worked with directors Victoria Lafaurie and Hector Albouker, and the location was chosen for what it carries emotionally—a place that embodies a kind of vulnerability that I think fits the song perfectly, as Leone put it. Ferries do have that quality. You’re between places, surrounded by water and strangers and the specific solitude of early-morning transit. Neither here nor there.

She wanted the video to start very slowly and gently and then transform into something bigger and more powerful, while keeping a certain intimacy. That’s also an accurate description of the song itself. It builds without announcing that it’s building, and by the time it opens up you’re already inside it. The scale feels earned rather than imposed, which is a harder thing to pull off than it sounds.

This is the kind of pop music I want more of—slow and serious and unafraid of its own weight. I’ll be paying close attention to whatever Leone does next.