Maxim Kelly Dips into the Archive for Deepfake Video 'Nigel Hitter'

Maxim Kelly has teamed up with SHAME to create a visually striking masterpiece to accompany the release of their new single ‘Nigel Hitter’. The track was premiered on Annie Mac’s Radio 1 Show last week as The Hottest Record In The World ahead of their forthcoming album release ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ on 15th January via Dead Oceans.

The single, a riff-hitting flare up with funky Gang of Four echoes, started life as the band readjusted to a new normal back home, having spent much of their adult life on tour, as frontman Charlie Steen explains: “Nigel Hitter is one of the vital organs of Drunk Tank Pink. A necessary pulse. Focused on daily routine, repetition, and how extraordinary any ordinary task seemed to me after coming home from touring. A world of percussion and joy lies within.”

The video repurposes archival footage from old research centres on the development of children. Using deepfake technology, the babies start to lip sync along with the song, while the band cameo as chin-stroking scientists in the style of an early David Cronenberg movie: with curious institutions, strange experiments and creepy gifted toddlers.

Maxim adds: “The idea stemmed from the lyrics. I felt like there was a paradox at play when putting the lyrics into the mouth of a baby. It seemed both stupid and quite clever (which is usually the indicator of a good idea). From the “Wheels on the Bus,” to the udders that keep feeding, to tying the knot on their shoes and the clothes they grow out of, to throwing their supper up the wall, or a baby’s incompetence in singling out shapes for their “shape-sorting toy.” It all somehow seemed to fit in an odd logic. The goal was to take all this randomly sourced footage and applying various post-production techniques to it, in order to create the myth, the legend, that is Nigel Hitter M.D.”