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Iggy Pop Drops Visuals For “American Valhalla”

Iggy Pop has dropped the new video for his latest single American Valhalla, taken from his recent Post Pop Depression LP, a collaboration with Josh Homme and quite possibly his final album.

The video begins with some grainy footage of a 1960’s boxing match, before model Ruth Bell enters the frame and sits down, with the screen containing the boxing footage positioned directly over her face.

The song then begins, with cuts of the boxing match spliced with footage of Iggy singing, and showing off his trademark dance moves.

As the fight, and song reach their conclusion, the video cuts to a silent Bell staring at the camera with her face covered in bruises, serving as a powerful end to an uncomfortable, brooding song. Watch below.

Speaking to Nowness, Iggy said of the video, “This is my favourite song and Ruth’s performance is brilliant, thanks kid.”

In the same feature, director Jaime-James Medina said, “I love Iggy Pop and I’m a huge boxing fan. I was listening to “American Valhalla” and was reminded of this very low-key but classic fight between Dick Tiger and Gene Fullmer, which took place in Nigeria in 1963 and for whatever reason I found a connection there.”

“There is so much history in Iggy’s voice.”

In a recent interview with Song Exploder, Iggy noted that the song itself was started when Josh Houmme sent him a “shitty demo”, before beginning to take shape as a tale about American values. 

Read our review of Post Pop Depression here.

Image: Pitchfork