Roller Rink Royalty: Local Duo Retrolux Drops Video for “W/O U”

I don’t know if everyone grows up listening to music and fantasizing potential music video plotlines in their head, but I certainly still do this almost daily. You hear a song that speaks to you in some way, and you’re suddenly falling down this rabbit hole into a world where you are the protagonist in a romanticized storyline.

For most, this is only a game we play with our imaginations. But for others, like Anna James and Maynard Shaye of Retrolux, it can be a multi-month project with an end result that has finally come to fruition.

The Gainesville indie-pop duo debuted their first ever music video for “W/O U” off of their EP Optics with us. Knowing the band members as individuals, this visual representation of their artform perfectly embodies the identity that Retrolux has come to take on. Some of the scenes of the video, especially the ending, made me think “this is SO Anna and Shaye.”

The video takes viewers through a story of heartache and the process of moving on. James is working through the aftermath of a fictional toxic relationship with fellow Gainesville-based musician Matt Fowler, with black and white flashbacks to the discord that led them there.

She spends the majority of the video isolated until the final scene where she is joined by a crowd in a roller rink. The imagery in the video is symbolic of the lyrics in the song switching from “how do I feel without you” to “how do you feel without me.”

One of the most striking aspects of the video to me is how believable the acting is. Every fight and every scene of James with glazed-over eyes communicates this sense of hurt that you almost forget isn’t real. My favorite shot in the video is her sitting on an air hockey table inside a neon-lit arcade, throwing her head back in desperation.

Locations like the arcade and the roller rink used in the video hold his inherent juvenile quality of innocence and fun. We take refuge in childlike places. It is a bold contrast to bring the heaviness of this particular storyline to a traditionally pleasant setting. But I absolutely love the contradiction.

I had fun watching the video and trying to pinpoint familiar locations around Gainesville where they filmed. It was kind of like searching for all the hidden Mickeys at Disney World. Your mind is guided to explore this storyline in a familiar setting, which makes it all the more entrancing to the viewer.

“We just wanted to think of places that would create a sense of isolation in a public place where you don’t see anyone else there for whatever reason,” said Shaye on where the video was filmed.

James shared that she wasn’t too uncomfortable filming in public places, even though there would occasionally be a confused onlooker.

“I mean, I made dumb YouTube videos growing up as a kid, so I’m used to doing weird shit in public,” she said.

The hardest part was to not start cracking up in the middle of shooting a fake argument with Fowler, someone who she isn’t actually dating or mad at. They said they had the most success when they would just mouth words at each other instead of creating an actual dialogue.

At the beginning of the summer, I remember getting an invite on Facebook to the “Retrolux Blade Rave” at Skate Station. The event was an open invite to be a part of the closing scene of the duo’s new video. Can I just say this is genius?

They shared how shocked they were by how many people came out to be a part of their project. The event ended up being sponsored by Red Bull and created a very gratifying resolution to the video. The conclusion was intended to communicate that James made it through the fog of the failed relationship, according to Shaye.

Retrolux’s video is available to stream now and you can watch it here! Find out more about their upcoming shows on September 21 and November 2 on their website, Facebook and Instagram.

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