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Watch SBTRKT’s Terrifying ‘Trials of the Past,’ an NSFW Sci-Fi Short

sbtrkt album trials of the past replicant

The fact that SBTRKT released his self-titled debut all the way back in June of 2011 hasn’t stopped that album’s narrative from continuing on into 2013. Last year, we shared the late-entry music video for the Sampha-featuring “Hold On,” in which a disheveled man caught in a Groundhog Day-style loop was unable to prevent his presumed lover from leaving him for good. At the start of the brand new Ross Anderson-directed clip for “Trials of the Past,” which also features the sweetly pained coo of Sampha Sisay, we see a similarly dressed woman who appears to be on the run. Quickly it becomes very apparent, however, that this is a very different sort of story and that she’s not a woman — not exactly. After entering an eerie city from a country road, the video’s star locates a barbershop run by a strange-looking fellow. When she takes a seat, instead of reaching for scissors, he grabs a bone saw and begins to put in work.

It’s gory to be sure, but all of that high-powered hacking reveals the subject to be a robot quite possibly wearing the rictus of a woman that she previously offed.