FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

IC3PEAK Challenge the Russian Government's Anti-Queer Stance in New Video

The Russian duo's latest track, "Go With The Flow" addresses anti-gay laws in their home country.

The Moscow-based music and visual duo IC3PEAK brew a powerful cocktail of electronic music that is as politically charged as it is utterly danceable. If their weapon is art, their target is intolerance—hurled at the Russian government's crackdown on queer-identifying people and it's ban on what it deems gay propaganda, a subject they tackle with infectious bombast in their newest video.

Directed and edited by IC3PEAK's members Nick Kostylev and Nastya Kreslina, along with a large production crew, "Go With the Flow" gathers a provocative company of vogue dancers and places them on the streets of Moscow and São Paulo. The music troughs and peaks with sub bass beats that levitate into moments of sublime celestial beauty carried by Kreslina's falsetto. As the dancers slowly gyrate their bodies, some in make-up, some near-nude, the music quickly darkens when two of the dancers embrace in a kiss, with Kreslina chanting with a heart-beat's rhythm: "I can be anything you want, go with the flow."

"We have a tough 'situation' in Russia" IC3PEAK told THUMP over email. "We filmed this video with talented and beautiful [members] of the queer communities from Brazil and Russia, as our personal way to say 'fuck you' to our government, and to those parts of society which still consider queer culture 'unhealthy'. We want everybody to have the opportunity to be what they are without fear. We are rare flowers trying to survive in a concrete jungle. Created by nature we are beautiful and strong. We aim from darkness to the light. We are, we exist, we shine. All the boundaries are relative. To define and overcome them is in our power."

Watch the video above and head to the IC3PEAK's bandcamp to stream FALLAL, which is out now.