Jānis Rungis releases a new album and makes his debut as a video director

Multi-artist Jānis Rungis has created a new single “Citizen“. A video was also created for him, with which he made his directorial debut.

The inscription “Citizen” describes a member of society in relation to a specific set of people. The song is not about the author himself, but a very true story about each of us in individual expressions and stages. The meaning of the story is clarified even more by the fact that Janis, for the main role in the clip, has arranged an actor from Moscow – Artūrs Smoljaninova, who has moved to live in Latvia since the start of the Ukrainian war.

Since he is recognized as a terrorist in his own country, since he openly expressed his views about the ongoing nonsense in Russian society, we also make us think about the meaning of the song. Accordingly, he is not considered to be a “citizen” anywhere, because the definition of this word also includes the following phrase: “A person who belongs to the permanent residents of country, to whom the rights and obligations are provided by the laws of the country. country claims…”

Jānis Rungis considers the last line of the song “the world has changed a long time ago, but the council has not” as the key phrase of the song, thus pointing out the constant differences in ways thinking generations and other social groups.

“A citizen. But what citizen? A citizen of the world. But what world?” asks Artūrs Smoljainov. “Is someone mourning her, or is it his own tears through laughter? Searching for answers, our hero goes on a grotesque, unusual path, which in the end makes everything more difficult and leads him to the edge of happiness. Thanks to my friend Jānis Rungis, who created this I had the opportunity to smile and laugh at my antics while doing it, the only thing that matters now is that we are alive and ‘ creation and now we are all guests of the universe for a while.

“If the clip was made with Artūras, who is looking for a new citizen status, I created the song itself with my British friend Nick Moss Rogers, who lives in Latvia, with his we have crossed paths in other creative projects as well,” says Janis Rungis.

“The recording of the song was very special, because Nick’s studio is located in an old sauna house in Boulderai, which definitely helps to feel young spirits in search of creativity.

We also used them in the co-production process, Nik was also a recording engineer and percussionist, but we finished the final mix together with Sergej Laletin.

The song was sung by the author himself, playing guitar and bass guitar and adding some keyboard playing. In the end, the idea arose to be the director of the video for the new single as well, but to entrust the duties of the cameraman to the undoubtedly talented Oskars Upeniek.

“The video was filmed on one of the hottest days in July,” Jānis recalls. “The overarching goal was also to create fun, which is not always the easiest task. In the clip, the director intended to make small references to the legendary comedy group “Monty Python”, as well as the work of the even more legendary Charlie Chaplin. “

“In collaboration with Jānis, it is always clear that both the process and the result will be interesting,”

says operator Oskars Upenieks. “During the filming, there was a lot of free space left for improvisation and the actor’s frame study, which allowed him to work much more freely with the filming material also at the editing stage.” An editorial director was able to video and color master Valentīns Linovickis dealt with the latter.

Look at it!

The recording of the new song was done with the support of the AKKA/LAA association.