Synopsis
HNNY's "For The Very First Time" is presented as a hypnotic, non-narrative collage rather than a conventional performance video. Vintage images of people, machinery, bodies, and abstract forms flicker, overlap, and dissolve in time with the track's warm house pulse. The footage creates a dreamlike dialogue between human movement and early technology, with repetition and visual distortion turning archival material into something both nostalgic and futuristic. The result feels like a found-film journey shaped by rhythm instead of a linear story.
Factoids & Trivia
- The video was created in 2012 using material filmed or assembled across Gothenburg, Kassel, and Berlin.
- It includes samples from films by Erkki Kurenniemi, the Finnish electronic-music pioneer and experimental filmmaker whose work often explored the relationship between people, machines, and recorded images.
- The song first appeared on HNNY's debut EP, released by Stockholm label Local Talk in September 2012. The video followed later that year, arriving online in December.
- "For The Very First Time" was HNNY's first track made under the HNNY name. He initially played it himself for about a year, using it to open or close his DJ sets before it was discovered by Kornel Kovacs.
- The track's vocal phrase comes from Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love." The sample-based production became an early calling card for HNNY, whose later work also frequently reworked R&B and pop vocals.
- The video version is distinct from the original audio release, with its visual treatment built around the archival and experimental film samples rather than a conventional narrative or artist appearance.