Premiere: Hex Unveil New Single 'Runes / Ruins' Along With Visual Treat (+ Interview)

Wellington trio Hex have unveiled new single 'Runes / Ruins' along with an eye-candy clip directed by bandmember Kiki Van Newtown. The song is plucked from the group's eagerly anticipated debut album The Hill Temple, and speaks to the highs and lows of relationships while the video tackles the subject metaphorically through the crushing/rewarding ritual of cake baking. Feast your eyes on the video below and scroll down to read our interview with Kiki...

Hi Kiki! So today you folk are sharing the awesome ‘Runes / Ruins’, can you tell us a little bit about the play on words in the title there?

I wrote this song back when my friend was going on a lot of Tinder dates and telling me all about her experiences with love and lust. One theme that emerged was how the intensity of lust makes it seem like it’s time eternal - like an energy that is preordained from long ago - and you find yourself being all fatalistic and saying things like ‘it’s like we’re meant to be together’. Of course, most of these Tinder relationships didn’t work out, sometimes totally amicably, but sometimes in total spectacular and heartbreaking ruin. I mean, it would save so much mental energy if we could prophesies relationships, but it might also be really, really dull.

You helmed the video as producer and director, it looks like so much fun especially making the cakes!! What were some of the challenges behind cooking up the clip?

It was an incredibly joyful process making this video. We worked with a great team of people, and everyone totally understood the mood to begin with, which was basically ‘trying to keep it together but not keeping it together at all’ which is basically my mood 24/7. Because the whole aesthetic was over the top it gave us a lot of space to play with the characters, and just really go nuts with the art direction, and shooting it turned into a very heady day of gaudy makeup, big emotions, delicious food, and ended with a massive mess which was very difficult to clean up.

The ritual portrayed has this familiar feel of growing up and making cakes for your friends and family, and being devastated if something goes wrong with it and super proud if it turned out well. What were you looking to convey with the clip?

Basically that ^ but as a metaphor for relationships! I wanted to try and capture that feeling of fragility, where you’re working on something that is very precious to you, and you’re trying to make it SO beautiful and perfect, but the intensity of focus is so full on that you eventually can’t bear it and you just crack and end up destroying everything. Does this happen to anyone else lol?! The redemption is that once you’ve destroyed everything you feel liberated from expectation, and that’s a good feeling. The ritual of new relationships is so interesting. There is so much pretence you go through before you can get to the easy bits of just being gross meat sacks in front of each other.

In the wake of Liz moving to Auckland, Jason Erskine has picked up the sticks for Hex. Can you tell us a little bit about Jason and where you found him?

We picked Jason up over a year ago when we started working together on recording with him. It turns out he’s a super accomplished musician as well as a very articulate recording and mix engineer, and GG and I eventually realised it made the best sense that he’d join the band on drums. So far it’s been pretty great! He walks the tightrope of contributing ideas / knowing when a man’s opinion isn’t needed with precision, and he is also a really good cook.

We can’t wait to hear the new album in full! When is it expected to drop?

We have been working so hard on getting this album finished, and are just finalising all the artwork for it! We’re still figuring out release details at the moment but I can tell you that it will be released on vinyl in all it’s tactile glory, and that it’s called The Hill Temple, and that we are a little bit in love with it like a precious little newborn.

You can catch Hex at the following dates:

Saturday 26th August, Caroline, Wellington w/ Into Orbit + The Moa Belt
Friday 1st September, The Other's Way Festival, K Road Precinct, Auckland
Friday 13th October, Meow, Wellington w/ Die! Die! Die! + Mr Amish

See below for links to tickets (where applicable)and more information.