Ten years ago, Australian musician Pepa Knight released his debut album, the cross-cultural and entrancing Hypnotised Vol I. At long last, the sequel is in the midst, and a couple of weeks ago, Pepa released the first single – “Superman”. Today, we are thrilled to be premiering the video for this beautiful new track.
Hypnotised Vol I. was a fusion of indie-folk and world music. It was written and recorded during Pepa’s time in Rajasthan, India, and those influences shine brightly. His album struck a chord far and wide – earning sync placements such as the Sony PS5 reveal video and the video game Sackboy: A Big Adventure amongst others.
The follow-up album almost didn’t happen. It was recorded at the same time as the debut, but a catastrophic data failure meant that tragically, the recordings were lost. Pepa was understandably disheartened, so much so that he walked away from the music industry. As you would expect, it was crushing. We’ve all lost a few hours work from failing to save, but to lose a massive body of work like this would have been devastating.
Pepa eventually found the will and courage to come back to music, and revisit those original songs. He salvaged voice memos, scattered recordings and his own memories, and the first track to emerge was “Superman”, the first single from the album. It is a warm and tender journey, featuring beautiful acoustic guitars and a Mellotron and finishes with a gorgeous flute solo. “You can choose what you can do” he sings – given the challenges he went through to record the album, this lyric feels particularly pertinent. “Superman” is lush and inspiring.
The video is one of the standouts of 2024. Pepa has taken a deep dive into AI to put this one together. AI raises so many questions, particularly within the arts community – I love how it has been used to meld old and new. It’s a remarkable achievement from Pepa, and his ten-year-old son Biko, who helped put it together.
Pepa gives us the lowdown on the creation of this video: “The entire music video was created using AI. It started with over 3,500 images generated in MidJourney, combined with around 600 video clips from Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha Image-to-Video AI. I trained the AI with live footage of me singing the song in the Act One generative model, along with old photos and videos from over 10 years ago in India, back when this song was first written and recorded.
From there, I reshaped the video from its original portrait format into widescreen using Runway’s latest Gen-3 Alpha Expand tool, then pieced it all together in Premiere Pro. Finally, I upscaled and interpolated the footage to 60 FPS using Topaz Video AI to give it a polished finish. A special thanks to my son Biko, who played a huge role in directing the clips and helping bring this vision to life.”
Enjoy the absolutely fabulous “Superman” from Pepa Knight.
