Placebo have released a new video for their cover of Talk Talk track Life’s What You Make It.
The song appeared on Placebo’s 2016 EP of the same name, with the new promo filmed in Agbogbloshie – a former wetland in the heart of Accra, Ghana, which is home to one of the world’s largest electronic waste dumps.
Vocalist Brian Molko says he wanted to reinterpret and update the original 1986 Talk Talk promo, which was shot at night on London’s Wimbledon Common and featured “little beasties crawling over leaves.”
Molko says: “The band would be robots playing instruments and that e-waste would replace nature, as it appears to be doing only a few decades after the song’s original release.
“The only director who actually came back to us with a treatment about e-waste was Sasha Rainbow. I called her up to sound her out and discovered that I was speaking to a very brave and passionate woman.
“I told her that she had balls of steel for actually daring to go film on location in Ghana and that, no, we would not be coming, since we were timid little souls.”
Rainbow adds: “The two boys in the film live in this extraordinary place which for me, highlights a human’s ability to adapt with incredible strength, resilience, and humanity.
“I hoped to capture the environment in a dreamily meditative way that would at once juxtapose and yet synergise with the theme of the song, and glimpse at part of the repercussions of our current technological revolution.
“On the one hand, technology is enabling us to create things beyond our wildest imagination, and yet little discussion has been had about what to do with all our discarded e-waste.”
Placebo have released the video to coincide with the announcement that they’ll tour across the UK in October for a run of 11 dates.
Tickets go on sale from 9am on June 7. Find a full list of shows below.
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Placebo 2017 UK tour
Oct 07: Edinburgh Usher Hall
Oct 08: Dundee Caird Hall
Oct 10: Doncaster Dome
Oct 11: Blackpool Empress Ballroom
Oct 13: Reading Rivermead
Oct 14: Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
Oct 16: Portsmouth Guildhall
Oct 17: Swindon Oasis
Oct 20: Plymouth Pavilions
Oct 21: Wolverhampton Civic Hall
Oct 23: London O2 Brixton Academy
