Sydney 6-piece band Ona Mota officially arrived in ears in December 2019 – at the start of summer, inspired and ready to play live shows and with tunes that filled the room with their unique saxo-phonic clad grooves. Sounds that nod gently in equal parts (amongst others) to the genre-fluid clangs of Scissor Sisters, Bee Gees and with added subtle hints of The Rapture on latest single release, Dance With U. As is well known by now, 2020 didn’t leave much space for live performance in Sydney, nor the world over. This left the band to compromise on and adapt the initial intentions for the project, a prospect that so many artists and musicians (in particular) were similarly faced with at the time. That journey has led to a wise evolution for a band like Ona Mota, embracing alternative modes of creativity being a welcome challenge.
The art-centric elements of the band's sound and parts lends itself well to a DIY approach. Clipped bites of music accompanied interesting archival and computer-generated digital artefacts to keep their audience entertained throughout lockdown while behind the scenes, bigger projects have been bubbling away.
“I had seen Dan’s work whilst at Cement Fondu and knew if Ona Mota were going to be an art band, we had to push boundaries, we had to work with him”, says frontman Sepehr Pourbozorgi of Daniel Stricker, director and 3D producer of their latest video.
Not being able to shoot the video in person due to obvious reasons, iPhone apps were used to capture the digital elements required to pull the video together. This realm of creativity is (somewhat) new to Dan too, having a history in music production (originally as the drummer in Midnight Juggernauts, and more recently in his work with art/music project The Deep Faith with Byron Spencer, amongst many other projects and achievements).
“Dan used every opportunity whilst walking around on his own to capture environments that could be integrated into the video”.
The result is a visual treat for the eyes and welcome distraction for the ears – the song itself a warmup for the (hopefully) memorable nights out this summer as things begin to open up again in Sydney. Sliced together by musician, producer and ex Bumblebeez frontman Chris Colonna, the video is a true testament to peer collaboration and exploring/ honing new skills in the long hours of uncertainty we may find ourselves in, in 2021.
Ona Mota’s journey to this point may have been somewhat different to what the band had in mind initially, but the outcome at this point is a happy salutation to escaping both aurally and visually – the latter may not have been so well explored had they not had constrictions on playing live.
Watch the premiere of Dance With U by Ona Mota below.
