Bell Witch partnered with Director Taylor Bednarz to create this feature-length music video to accompany the Mirror Reaper album. The film is a video collage comprised of dozens of archival films. Each of these clips are woven together with the album to build a patient, heavy, and haunting narrative. Listen to the full 83 minute album, Mirror Reaper, while being taken into the state of a lucid dream.
“ Watch the Mirror Reaper visual album below and experience a fever dream of human history”
With their third full-length album, “Mirror Reaper,” Seattle’s doom metal duo BELL WITCH have created a truly enormous work – one continuous 83-minute piece unfolding as a single track. The album was released on October 20th 2017 by Profound Lore Records.
On the themes surrounding the concept and lyrics of “Mirror Reaper” the band state:
“The title ‘Mirror Reaper’ is indicative of the Hermetic axiom ‘As Above, So Below,’ written with two sides to form one whole. The song is both its own and its reflection, as an opposite is whole only with its contrary. Our focus as a band has always been the perception of ghosts and the implied archetype of the dichotomy of life/death therein. ‘Mirror Reaper’ is a continuation of that concept.
During the writing process we were devastated by the loss of our dear friend and former drummer, Adrian Guerra. In love and respect to his memory, we reserved an important yet brief section in the song for him that features unused vocal tracks from our last album. This specific movement serves as a conceptual turn in the piece, or point of reflection. We believe he would be proud of it as well.
‘Mirror Reaper’ was the first collaborative writing project with the new line up, and Adrian's death during it brought extra emotional weight. We sought to match the complexity and weight of these events within the composition of the piece.”
This video is made entirely out of antique, archival and public domain footage as thanks to Archive.org and Perlinger Archives. Donate to film conservation here:
Films Listed in order of appearance:
Dementia “Daughter of Horror” (1955), John Parker
Post-Quake Scenes (1906)
Perlinger Archives
The Screaming Skull (1958)
Alex Nicol
Berkeley, California Fire (1923)
Perlinger Archives
Destruction of a Dam (1923)
Perlinger Archives
The Fleet that Came to Stay (1945)
United States Department of Defense
Assembling The Deep Sea Outfit (1963)
United States Department of Defense
Dementia 13 (1963)
Francis Ford Coppolla
The Sadist (1963)
James Landis
American Maker (1960)
Walter Koste, Donald Livingston, John Thiele, Jean Yarbrough
Water (1953)
Paul F. Moss
The News Magazine of the Screen (1951)
Warner Pathé
Poverty in Rural America (1965)
US Department of Agriculture
American Frontier (1953)
Willard Van Dyke
Dialogue with Life (1968)
Murray Lerner, Lloyd Ritter
Fetal Pig Anatomy (1961)
Indiana University Audio Visual Center
Historical Review of Incineration
Perlinger Archives
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Roger Corman
Crimes of Carelessness
Atlanta Public Schools, Perlinger Archives
Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse (1940)
Perlinger Archives
Wonderful World of Trains
John Gilmour, Perlinger Archives
Time out for Trouble (1961)
International Film Bureau, Perlinger Archives
The Ghost Train (1941)
Walter Forde
Carnival of Souls (1961)
Herk Harvey
Gould Can: Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)
Perlinger Archives
Untitled Home Movie (1956)
Perlinger Archives
Mental Hospital (1953)
Layton Mabrey
University of Oklahoma Subject: Narcotics (1951)
Denis and Terry Sanders
Facing Reality (1954)
Knickerbocker Productions, Perlinger Archives
Here and Now (1958)
Perlinger Archives
Spider Baby (1968)
Jack Hill
Down at Our Pond: A Film Lesson in Nature Study (1926)
Neighborhood Motion Picture Service, Inc. Perlinger Archives
Heart and Circulation (1937) Perlinger Archives
Fish From Hell (1945)
Marine Pictures Perlinger Archives
Camera Thrills of the War (1943)
Castle films, Perlinger Archives
Boats (aka A Boat Trip) (1938)
Perlinger Archives
