It speaks to the boundlessness of the human imagination that for every natural or historic landmark, there’s a host of people who truly believe it’s haunted. That rule extends even to Grant Park, a South Milwaukee haven and one of the crown jewels of the county parks system. Where most visitors see a picturesque park with some beautiful foliage and a peaceful beach, others see something decidedly more sinister. “It’s said that adults and children have been killed there,” one person wrote, on one of the many websites devoted to the park’s supernatural ties. “It’s also rumored that if you stand on one of the bridges that a mist or an apparition of a person would happen right in front of you." Others have reported “glowing lights, voices, and occasionally, a human screaming.”
That makes Grant Park a fitting setting for NO/NO’s latest video—a place of deep beauty that, given the right lighting and frame of mind, could also really creep you out if you let it. “Enter this wild wood and view the haunts of nature,” reads an iconic sign of the entrance to the park’s Seven Bridges trail. Never mind that the line comes from a romantic William Cullen Bryant poem about the calming allure of the woods—it’s got the word “haunts” in it, and that’s kind of an eerie thing to see in the woods.
A song as mammoth as “Whatever,” the lighters-waving closer from the Milwaukee synth-pop group’s 2016 album Sound and Light, deserves a video this grand. Bassist Ryan Reeve directed it, and “We’re super proud of its goth campiness,” guitarist Harrison Colby says. “It’s very tongue and cheek.” If it’s camp, though, it’s an elegant kind of camp. Singer Cat Ries—caped, glamorous and vaguely undead—stalks the woods as if searching for the boundary between the natural and spiritual worlds, against a contrasting canvas of gloomy winter grays and eye-popping pinks and reds.
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You can stream the video below, and catch the band Saturday night at the Riverwest Public House, as part of their label's Gloss Weekend festival. Festival passes are still available an include a limited edition label cassette compilation.
