The Irish-Japanese trio’s video for the third single from debut album KiiKO Forever was directed by Craig Austin Reynolds.
KiiKO have shared a video for ‘Dance World’, the third single from their debut album KiiKO Forever, and we’re premiering it today.
We featured the single in September, and the album was one of our best albums of October.
Directed by Craig Austin Reynolds, the video takes its cue from the karaoke scene in Lost in Translation, with Emmy Shigeta in the Scarlett Johansson role. The karaoke video she sings along to is deliberately cheesy and over-sentimental, shot on a lo-fi camera to recall old-fashioned Japanese karaoke videos.
Emmy says the scene and the song both capture “something beautifully fleeting”, those moments with friends “lost in a world of your own”. Reynolds, a fan of the song, says the chance to mix Lost in Translation with 80s Japanese karaoke videos was “as fun as it sounds”, and that he leaned into a playful, maximalist edit.
♡ Nialler9 is independent and reader-supported. Support us on Patreon →
The homage to the karaoke scene in Lost in Translation felt like a natural fit for KiiKO. For me, both the scene and the song capture something beautifully fleeting: those intimate moments with friends, lost in a world of your own, where reality seems to disappear for a little while. I wanted the video to evoke that same sense of freedom, nostalgia and bittersweet euphoria, a night you wish would never end.
Emmy Shigeta
I’m a big fan of the song, and the opportunity to experiment with a very eclectic hodgepodge of film references like Lost in Translation fused with Japanese karaoke videos from the 80s was as fun as it sounds. I didn’t hold back in the edit and leant into a playful and maximalist style that felt appropriate for Dance World.
Craig Austin Reynolds
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. Niall is the chost of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and host of monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
