Eartheater’s latest music video is a sexual awakening on the streets of Kyiv

American avant-pop artist Eartheater takes to the icy streets of Kyiv in her latest music video to share an intimate story about breaking from the religious dogmas of her childhood.

Premiering today, “Fait Consuming Hope” is part of her fourth album Phoenix: Flames are Dew Upon My Skin, released in 2020.

The video opens with Eartheater, aka Alexandra Drewchin, as a runaway nun, walking away from Kyiv’s Holy Protection Monastery as she takes off her black habit and exposes a revealing corset. The scene is interrupted by shots of her spinning around in a flowing pink gown, to the song’s dreamy, choir-like melody. Finally, Eartheater ventures into a Kyiv underpass where, dressed in an all-red, dominatrix-like leather outfit, she pushes a man to his knees, in shots intercalated with the artist jumping in and out of the shadows on a stage as she performs in a rope harness.

Each of the characters in the video symbolically embody different stages of life, and reflect the artist’s internal tensions and personal journey breaking free from the taboos she grew up with — and embracing her sexual, emboldened energy.

Drewchin, who was born to a Russian father and a British mother in rural Pennsylvania, grew up as a member of an Eastern Orthodox sect on a farm in New York, submitted to strict dogmas, spiritual trials, and restrictions. In an exclusive interview for Ukrainian media outlet Tight, Drewchin described the video as “very personal — that’s the main thing to remember at the end of the day — that I grew up with this shit — it’s not just an aesthetic I’m flexing on in this video. It’s hard to articulate the delicacy of how deep this goes for me.”

The artist first visited Kyiv in December 2020, after the director of the video, Elliott Power reached out to the artist and told her he wanted to shoot a music video for her in the city in collaboration with Ukrainian production company Radioaktive Film. Eartheater has been active since 2009, and rose to fame in 2015, when she released her debut album Metalepsis.