The Biology of Plants is a relatively fresh group based in Brisbane that creates an intriguing infusion of electronica, jazz and classical music. The band have released an EP earlier this year and have been active within the scene playing a number of shows around Brisbane.

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TBoP writes songs based on and inspired by plants and aims to incorporate their instrumental virtuosity by "overcomplicating even the simplest of melodies to create something larger.. much like a blossoming flower as it reaches its peak of existence." Bassist and co-writer Helen Svoboda writes about this song, "Long Black' (Bong Llack) is an ode to coffee. An tribute to the caffeinated buzz that hits when consumed black. Coffee without the disappointing dilution of milk - no sugar, no cold water. Black coffee in it’s simplest, purest state. Liquid gold. Derived from the humble cacao bean, the love of plants is real, and very much alive." 

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The video (below) was a collaboration by Angus Kirby (director) and Sean Ryan (DOP). Kirby explains, 

"This vid is a blend of a couple of different ideas I had in my head. The track gave me cult vibes, and the Svoboda clan are frightening, hypnotic people, so it got me thinking of movies with an appropriate aesthetic, in particular this seventies Afro-vampire flick called “Ganja and Hess” which has some great evangelical, occult imagery - really lo-fi, grainy, grindhouse stuff but with quite a poetic edge. We definitely borrowed some of the surreal qualities. The song itself lulls you into a bit of a trance, especially in the vocal section. I knew the video should embrace the tongue-in-cheek weirdness of the band and try to push it a little further.

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It’s also four and a half minutes long, so it needed a story or at least a journey from A to B. The long black as a drink became the proverbial Kool-Aid. They perform, they’re enlightened, and then they perform with a renewed, brainwashed energy. Since it’s performance heavy and we’re shooting similar action for a lot of it, we used combinations of massively different focal lengths to keep it punchy and give each part of the video a different feeling. With the Director of Photography, Sean Ryan, we shot chronologically over a single day so the light would change as we went and used Glimmerglass filters for an ethereal glow on the highlights. The filters set the look for us, so the colour grade was mostly contrast tweaking, but the grade gets warmer as the video progresses to amplify the feeling of the afternoon sun going down."

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You can check out the video for TBoP's Long Black below and catch them at their next show at The Bearded Lady on the 12th of August.