Joanne Robertson & Oliver Coates — Always Were

JUL 01 2025 · 12:00

Joanne Robertson & Oliver Coates — Always Were (2025) Director: Brad Kronz Era: Post-Internet Experimental Folk (2025) - UK avant-folk and ambient minimalism era; AD 93 label underground; lo-fi conceptual music video aesthetic aligned with DIY art-world filmmaking High curatorial value as a precisely documented example of the intersection between UK experimental music (AD 93 label), contemporary fine art (Brad Kronz), and ambient folk songwriting. The quantitative fingerprint — near-static motion, underexposed warmth, slow cutting — provides an unusually clean aesthetic data profile for a homemade conceptual video, making it a valuable reference point for studies of lo-fi intentionality in 2025 music video culture. Tier 1.5 given strong label and artist pedigree and art-world director crossover, offset by limited mainstream reach. Context: Released 27 August 2025 as the second single from Joanne Robertson's album Blurrr on the AD 93 label, 'Always Were' sits within a fertile 2020s moment for UK experimental folk and art-adjacent music. Robertson's collaborator Oliver Coates is widely recognised for his film score work, notably on Aftersun (2022), lending the project cross-disciplinary cachet. The video's direction by Brad Kronz, a visual artist active in international contemporary art institutions, reinforces the track's positioning at the intersection of the music and fine art worlds — a zone increasingly characteristic of the AD 93 roster. The album's genesis 'written in between painting sessions and also whilst raising a child' speaks to an intimate, life-embedded creative process directly mirrored in the video's homemade aesthetic. Director notes: The video for 'Always Were' has been described by press as a 'conceptual, homemade video' (HighClouds, August 2025). This descriptor aligns with Kronz's broader visual art practice, which engages sculptural and mixed-media installation. The low-motion, low-brightness, slow-cut quantitative profile of the video is entirely consistent with a contemplative, art-world-inflected approach rather than a commercial production. No further production-specific details (crew, location, equipment) are available from sourced materials.