Diane Arkenstone is an ambient and modern contemporary instrumental musician and a label owner. She recently released the album Aquaria II: Ascension via her own Neo Pacifica Records. A singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Arkenstone trained as an opera singer, and has experimented with many genres throughout her career. She considers herself a healing artist and has created or collaborated on over 55 albums in many genres.
Today, we’re very pleased to premier Arkenstone’s video for “The Glass Ceiling Is Now The Sky”, a track from Aquaria II: Ascension. The video was produced by Xander Bissell and Wesley Price and produced at The Sauce Pot Studios. The set design was created by Shannon Price and the silk aerialist in the video is Lily Grace Qwirk.
The song “The Glass Ceiling Is Now The Sky” is deftly composed of several movements which seem to escort the audience through different moods that have, all in all, a gradually rising tone and atmosphere which culminates in an uplifting feeling. From the outset, the track is textural and varied, giving a sense of movement and change. Vocals become as significant as instrumentation to guide the audience ahead of a formative beat, which is later reinforced by synths. As higher vocals and strings come in, the song opens out into an expansive, almost triumphant feeling. If we consider the song’s title, this may relate to a breakthrough into a more harmonious balance or a movement from the artificial to the natural.
In the new video, the entire “story” of the song is dramatized through coastal landscapes, the water itself, a human figure in that environment, and finally, through a dancer skillfully interpreting the life of a kelp forest beneath the waves. The mistiness of the coastline and rugged cliff edges that open the video form an excellent staging ground for this more challenging phase of the song, like the beginning of a journey into the unknown. A human figure in that landscape seems possibly small and disempowered, but that dynamic shifts as the song begins to rise and the figure embraces the coastal scape. In our kelp forest, where dance interprets growth, change, and movement, in this separate underwater world, we encounter a vibrant power at work, life overcoming challenges in ways that we can certainly learn from.
Diane Arkenstone shares about the song:
There is a profound shift towards higher consciousness and empathetic connections with oneself and others. My new album, ‘Aquaria ll, Ascension’ embodies this in every song. The video, ’The Glass Ceiling is Now the Sky’ is about breaking those barriers and ascending upward into the highest energy of Love.
Arkenstone adds about the video:
There is an ocean of symbolism in the video for, ‘The Glass Ceiling is Now the Sky.’ Water represents our spirit and our beginning on this planet. It also represents the power of the feminine energy of nurturing, compassion and love. The whole album is about our spiritual ascension and evolution upward. We captured all those elements and more in the video, and had a blast putting it all together!
Wesley Price comments on the video:
The inspiration for this video came directly from the feeling of grace and power conveyed by Diane’s music. Our vision was to show the human spirit coexisting with the spirit of the ocean by having Lily dance amongst a kelp forest.
Diane Arkenstone has worked within the World, Meditative, Ambient, Celtic, Native American traditions, and Americana. Throughout her career, she has also collaborated creatively as part of the duo, Enaid & Einalem, and with like-minded musician David Arkenstone, as well as producer Derek Nakamoto, and Grammy-nominated Trumpet and Flugelhorn player, Jeff Oster.
Her extensive discography has led to numerous artist collaborations and creative projects, as well as sync and partnership placements including with the American Heart Association and most recently with “Apple’s Best of Apps Winner,” Aura Health, a mindfulness and meditation App.
