FEATURE: Reb Fountain – He Commands You To Jump Into The Sea (Dir. Lola Fountain-Best)
We are all called towards something—a passion, purpose, or command. Whether philosophical or spiritual, this calling can lead us to reflect on both our capacity to follow heedlessly and also awaken us to the possibility of life’s many paths. On Reb Fountain‘s seventh studio album, How Love Bends, we are invited on a journey to explore how love tethers, blinds, nurtures, liberates and ultimately, chooses us. The Aotearoa-based artist’s latest feature track and video, ‘He Commands You To Jump Into The Sea’, is, however, a sonic and visceral call to expand our horizons to something greater and more profound than just ourselves. There’s also an underlying critique of ideological rigidity, whether this stems from religion, politics, or even personal narrative. “He,” the commanding voice, could be a god, or a stand-in for any entity that draws us away from conscious, compassionate living. As the artist herself says:
“We’re all ‘called’ by something. Our belief can be tethered so tightly to our identity that we lose sight of the forest from the trees … we can’t see beyond what we want something to mean or how that thing benefits us if we believe in it. Our belief keeps us company, makes us feel warm, assured, safe, special, justified, right, and the more rigid we become, the less we can see the great vastness of human complexity. Our expanse is beautiful, it is liberation, it is an opening to love. I hope, on some small, maybe unconscious level, that this little piece of art is a door to reimagining our possibility to expand.”
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- BTS of the sculpture park
In an era where music videos often serve as aesthetic extensions of songs, ‘He Commands You To Jump Into The Sea’ emerges as something more–a metaphysical meditation on faith, agency, and surrender. Brought to life in collaboration with her daughter, writer and director, Lola Fountain-Best, the music video is a testament to familial collaboration and creative intuition. Melding surrealist imagery, spiritual undertones, and emotionally charged symbolism to form a dreamlike parable that is as ambiguous as it is profound, the music video resoundingly marries the song thematically, with the visual component expressing the feeling of ‘blindly’ following something or someone. The subdued, vibrating keys that hum in the background pulsate with an organ that jabs between Reb’s vocal delivery–a haunting piece of spoken word she delivers. As she speaks of rivers with no edges, and mountains that share her last name, Reb implores her listeners: “If anyone here is interested… follow me”. At times, it feels like we are being summoned by a preacher, as if we, too, are being taken to church. Written during the haze of a head injury and pandemic lockdowns, the song—and the video—emerged from a state of semi-lucidity: “It does feel steeped in surrealism, although I suspect that’s more accidental than intentional”, she says. As she elaborates:
“The song is much like a dream, a stream of consciousness, an alternative dimension where everything is just a little bit different from our ‘reality’. It’s also a story in parts, that to me feels logical and sensical, although a little like experiencing the world under ether […] I was quite lost in a head injury at the time of writing it, and we’d had months of lockdowns, so I was pretty isolated on many levels. I had been enjoying writing songs that invited curious subjects into rather ordinary situations. Plus, I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude – not for the first time – and doing my best work in the dreamworld. The music video was a reflection and a response to this state and the song that emerged from it. We wanted the video to feel a little Twilight Zone. The sculpture park and cityscape we filmed in allowed us to manifest this ‘surreal’ landscape on a really limited budget … we were super fortunate to be able to do so.”
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- BTS of Lola and the crew mapping out a shot
The video’s surrealism is palpable with the characters caught between slowness and urgency. It is an atmosphere that feels real but eerily off-kilter, much like the influences Reb details in the realm of science fiction and magical realism. This blend of subconscious creativity and deliberate aesthetic choice invites viewers into a world that feels mythic, cautionary, and intimate all at once. The video opens with an unassuming yet charged moment—Reb at the music institution Real Groovy Records, holding a basket of oranges. It’s a curious image, rich with potential meaning–are they consciously placed? Seemingly hypnotised, she reaches into the basket to answer a red telephone. The basket falls to the ground, and the oranges scatter everywhere after she responds to the call. This seems to be the core ethos of the work—meaning is not imposed but discovered, emergent through experience. As Reb explains, the subtext of her songwriting and the context of her videos are often open to interpretation:
“I think it’s easy in retrospect to cultivate symbolism and meaning in art or life; whether it’s intentional, unconscious … is another story. I often get asked about my lyrics – what do they mean – and I’m not sure any answer I give is a good one. For the most part, folks find their own meaning and attach it to the music. That interpretation is far more ‘meaningful’ than me imposing the ‘truth’ upon their experience … and there’s no essential one thing my songs are about … they are complex, like life. Yes, there is thematic intention however, it’s all part of a broader creative process that can be as chaotic as purposeful, brazen as it is tenuous.”
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- BTS of a candid crew moment
The most overt symbol is the telephone—an agent of command, a call from an undefined, possibly divine or authoritative force. It beckons people from all walks of life to leap into the sea. “The telephone guides us to our fate and is a metaphor for all that we become addicted to believing in,” Reb explains. It’s a chilling but familiar idea in the modern world—how easily belief can be tethered to identity and how willingly we follow. Characters from all walks of suburban life appear in a transient state after answering this call, and with the same sense of urgency as Reb performs at the beginning of the video. They leap from trackers and bathtubs, florist shops and farmland, the characters intersect to form a large group as they reach the wide terrain of the lush, green New Zealand landscape. Running through farmland and forest, the vibrancy of the natural geography is magnificently captured with angled close-ups that pivot to wide-angle shots of both land and sea, as though we are being called to return to the natural world. Time feels slow and suspended, and the music builds momentum as the characters gain pace. The sea transforms into both a site of sacrifice and a mirror for awakening, a baptism of sorts, as these characters, fully clothed, collide into the ocean. Aerial shots capture the height and epicness that lead us to the video’s climax–a spectacular “Pied Piper-style” leap into the ocean. Lola’s direction, alongside cinematographer Jono Drew’s visual prowess, helped manifest a vision that was rooted as much in improvisation as it was in planning. From sweeping aerial shots to intimate tracking sequences, the cinematography amplifies the music’s themes–disorientation, unity, reckoning. Shot over two days with a close-knit team of friends and artists, it was both logistically ambitious and emotionally resonant:
“The first day, 10 of us jumped in 2 cars, grabbed a ferry and headed over to Waiheke in Tāmaki Makaurau where we drove for an hour to reach our destination. We shot all day and took the last ferry home. It was a divine mission; we all felt very lucky to be there, experience the wonder of the land, art and sea. The crew were fantastic. Jono was at the helm of camera operations, supported by our drone operators and Lola steering the ship. Jono is incredibly experienced and always brings a plethora of ideas and options to a shoot. He and Lola worked together to bring her shot ideas to life; Jono’s expertise meant he could envisage that which seemed impossible…. The second day was just Jono, Lola and I with the individual actors, heading to locations around Auckland and moving as fast as we could. Lola and I work very much on the fly; constantly recomposing, developing and exploring.”
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- BTS of extra Jamie posing in front of a sculpture seen in the video
Whilst the music video was brought together in an incredibly short period, she credits resourcefulness as being an incredibly important factor in the making of the video. Always one to pay her dues, she emphasises the importance of crediting the folks who work on all of her projects, namely family and close friends who were willing to trust the process. As a result, the shoot managed to fall into place:
“Often, our music videos are made for ‘the love of it’ and valuing someone’s time and energy through accreditation goes a long way to helping them feel appreciated. Plus it gives people a chance to check out their work if they like what they’ve done. The cast and crew are dear friends .. whānau really .. Despite not being actors, Jamie, Verity, Arahi, Elle & Eve were all willing to trust the process and see where it took them…. It was a surreal and memorable experience to share with them all. The crew were Lola Directing, Jono DOP and Ollie and Michael on Drones – they made this music video concept come to life, I’m very grateful. Post Production Editing was all Lola – she’s a wizard, and it was a beast. Grading was done by Alastair from The Finishing Suite with some help on visual effects by Richard. And then, of course, there’s the artwork – check out the video for full credits and a list of the Artist’s works that were featured.”
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- BTS of the crew posing for the camera
At its heart, the video poses a haunting question: why do we follow the call? Is the leap into the sea a return to nature, a symbolic baptism, or an act of blind faith? But for Reb, music videos are more than promotional content; they’re modern rituals. “It wasn’t necessary,” she says of making the video, “but it’s a joy to create and share art that is an extension of my music.” And in this case, the video becomes a spiritual companion to the song—a visual sermon on the power and peril of belief:
“I’m a believer that the stories we tell ourselves, or that others tell us, shape our world. Whether it’s a belief in the market, a dictator, a deity or a drama we tend to buy into a narrative that serves us; often to the detriment of ourselves, others or our planet. I wanted to call into question ‘blind faith’ in anything. ‘He’ is that which calls us to forget ourselves, our humanity or reality. We have a choice and the consciousness to be aware of what’s leading us and the capacity to choose wiser.”
‘He Commands You To Jump Into The Sea’ is a visual and sonic koan, both deeply personal and universally resonant. Whether you see the leap as liberation, love or loss, the experience compels introspection, a soft nudge toward waking up.
Here is the official video for “He Commands You To Jump Into The Sea“
Music Video Credits
Director: Lola Fountain-Best. Story: Reb Fountain & Lola Fountain-Best. Director of Photography: Jono Drew. Editor: Lola Fountain-Best. Additional Editing: Alastair Tye-Samson. Colourist & Finishing Artist: Alastair Tye-Samson. Post Production: The Finishing Suite. VFX Artist: Richard Borg. Drone Pilot: Oliver Compton. Assist: Micheal Paletta. Costume: Reb Fountain, Lola Fountain-Best & Eve Armstrong-Coop. Cast (in order of appearance): Reb Fountain, Elle Daji, Jamie Macphail, Verity Armstrong, Arahi & Eve Armstrong-Coop. Featuring Artworks (in order of appearance): Unknown: Street Art in Tāmaki Makaurau Denis O’Connor: Keelstone Gregor Kregar: Vanish Jeff Thomson: Three Cows Looking Out To Sea Neil Dawson: Other People’s Houses Sharonagh Montrose & Helen Bowater: Crossed Wires Virginia King: Oioi Bridge Cathryn Monro: Rise David McCracken: The Best Laid Plans Go West Julia Oram: Bung. Thanks to: John and Jo Gow John, Melalia & ‘Braemar on Parliament St’ Georgie Malyon & Greenpoint Florists Dan Bali and the team at Real Groovy Daryl Spooner.
