The first release from alt-rock legends Sleater-Kinney new album, A Little Rope, out in January 2024, is accompanied by a video, featuring director/writer/artist/actress Miranda July, and directed by acclaimed cinematographer Ashley Connor, which reflects the layers of pain at the heart of the song Hell.  

Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein suffered a personal tragedy last year, and the song is informed with her grief, interpreted by July in a powerful, highly theatrical and abstract performance piece. She flips between states of near mania, like a soul seeking pleasure as a relief from pain, to lonely desolation, always within the relentless gaze of Connor's camera.

The ingenuity is how the energy of July's heightened performance runs counter to the energy of the song, which makes it more intense, bringing the lyrics more into focus, turning it into a great artistic (and strongly feminist) statement on the agony of loss.

And in the end? She's still getting back up, and dancing.