We’ve just released the music video for WISER from our Unmasked album (2024). This track is a letter to our younger selves – a reflection and ultimately, a kind of peace offering. Not to the world, but to ourselves.
For those of us with late-diagnosed ADHD, it’s common to revisit the past with new eyes. To see that the chaos wasn’t character failure, the overwhelm wasn’t weakness, and the masks we wore were not vanity, but survival. There’s a whole lot to unpack in time, and time has been our friend in many ways to do so with grace and kindness.
“Dear younger me, I’m reaching out to let you know: the guilt and shame I carried holding on to you?
I’ve laid it down, walked away, let it go.”
In WISER, written post-diagnosis, we acknowledge the storms we weathered, the love that sometimes hurt, and the guilt that clung to us like a cold clammy swimming togs long after it outstayed its purpose. And we make space for forgiveness, especially the kind that begins from within.
A Different Kind of Home Video
As you may have already read, we make our own music videos, but this one was a little different. To honour the track, we made a story of our lives, really. The kind we never got to make growing up.
Like many families in the 70s and 80s, our childhoods weren’t captured on Super 8. We didn’t have camcorders or hours of footage to look back on. Photos were few, grainy, sometimes water-damaged but they carried something powerful. So we brought them to life.
With the help of AI, we transformed old stills into short video clips. Motion from memory. Faces flickering with life again – ours, as we were. Each scene, whether past or recent, is AI-generated from a single photo.
As Jel says: “When we were kids, our families didn’t have cine cameras or video cameras. Thanks to the wonders of AI we’ve been able to bring alive photos of ourselves from that time for this song ‘Wiser’, which is a letter back to our younger selves.”
But while AI is gaining momentum, the video still needed human intervention. We added filters to echo the look and feel of 70s photography. Flickers, static, colour bleed, you name it. We made it as “authentic” as possible, even while AI was fully making it all possible. It was a collaboration of sorts. Old tech, new tech, and plenty of trial and error. You won’t find six fingers, nor a single profile shot that we felt didn’t represent our younger selves.
And yes, every note, every lyric, every beat of this song was written, played, and sung by us. Mere humans. With all our imperfections and a little wiser too.
Enjoy!
Whether you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD or simply lived a life full of detours and questions, WISER might be a familiar echo. It’s not about rewriting the past. It’s about recognising what we carried, and choosing to put some of it down.
We all have younger selves still living quietly inside us. This song is for them.
WISER – Music video from UNMASKED album, 2024
Read the full lyrics for WISER here