‘Matches’: Sirota’s New Music Video
Following the release of her debut EP, ‘Grey’, in May, Brooklyn-born and based artist Sirota has just made and released a music video for ‘Matches’, one of her most popular tracks to date.
A 22-year-old independent singer-songwriter, Isabella Sirota merges her love for R&B with poppy sounds and meaningful lyrics. Commuting from New York to Philadelphia, she worked with Bloom Productions on ‘Grey’, which received support from us earlier this year, alongside Pastel Serenity Zine, Renouveau Media and The Pinnacle Mag.
Described as “a playful, cry-no-more bop,” Sirota’s ‘Matches’ has a bold beginning with sharp, staccato strings. Heavily influenced by upbeat and brassy Chicago R&B and artists like Orion Sun, Sirota takes aspects of the genre and blends them with velvety vocals and the confidence to spotlight difference. ‘Matches’ talks about heartbreak, finding joy when it's hard to uncover and refusing to be consumed by your problems.
The video directed by Kyle Best, edited by Sirota and put together by a team of creatives, has a premise tailor-made for I04, being about a girl inviting the so-called love of her life to her birthday party. When he doesn’t appear, chaos ensues and builds to a breaking point. With her anger becoming cathartic in the end, the video plays with the overdone trope that a woman in love is a woman obsessed and unravels the fine line between adoration and obsession. Sirota owns that stereotype, parodies it and twists it around.
Set in the artist’s childhood home, which also hosts a preschool in reality, the atmosphere is youthful and powered by imagination. The plot follows an overly enthusiastic caricature of a birthday girl whose whimsy is intentionally exaggerated to play into how the media repeatedly likes to portray women and girls as spoiled and particular, from birthday girls to brides.
Crumpled up paper with swirly orange handwriting on gingham bed sheets gives off slight Wes Anderson letter-writing vibes as the girl struggles to communicate her feelings. Popping with primary colours, sprinkles, and balloons, the video is visually fun and filled with homemade, DIY sensibilities, furthered as it was filmed in Sirota’s local neighbourhood, providing a constant sense of community. The people threaded throughout the video introduce the idea that you shouldn’t rely on a singular person for happiness.
Letter writing returns at the midpoint but with more confidence, as she expresses her rage and tells the truth. Piles of paper fly all over the place, and the label on the package switches from fragile to not fragile as the character learns to express herself, forming Sirota’s visual take on the song itself. With “you wasted all my time,” she meditates on all the thoughts and time she gave someone who didn’t dedicate the same to her. As markers of her obsession, tearing down the pictures framing her mirror at the end signals her growth. Sirota sings, “suddenly you’re so far from me,” as she looks into the mirror and blows out the candle, making a wish for herself instead of for someone else.
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The music video for ‘Matches’ by Sirota is available to watch now.
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Follow the links below to listen to Sirota and to learn more about her work.
by Lauren Burns (Editor)
Follow Sirota’s Instagram
Listen to Sirota on Spotify
(also published in I04)
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