EP/Video Review: mOXIE mOTIVE – Starstone Saga: The Eternal Lives of Keket

Less an EP than a series of movements within a video installation that is the actual release, mOXIE mOTIVE challenges conventions before you even begin listening or watching.

For Matthew Nurse, the musician behind the mOXIE mOTIVE, the video is to be viewed as the main release, though it has to be said that the music does play an important role in setting the tone within each scene.

And while the accompanying music did appear on 2025’s Chakra Supernova album, Nurse has remastered the five tracks, and that has added to the feeling of continuance and renewal that the video represents.

The video consists of distinct passages that hit very diverse visual styles and methods of creation. The music has to tie into that but also work as a cohesive whole. Dulce Keket accompanies the first section, its haunting and looping motifs in tune with how the visuals appear to invite you on an epic journey.

Prana, the next section, is also the ancient Sanskrit term for the energy that powers all living things, and symbols of energy play a large part in the visuals within that section of the video. The animation style has changed noticeably, as if to reinforce the central idea of this project, which one Nurse has described as a “plasma entity reincarnating through the infinite dimensions of space and time.” By contrast, the arrangement becomes more cosmic and synthesised, yet not too much of a shift from the first passage.

On The Hit, you get the first track with vocals, haunting and vulnerable, and as if to complement the overall concept of the project, it refers back to the first two tracks sonically, but also visually – though with darker shades and tones. Energy and fire are again present, in less benign forms. The mood has shifted.

Renewal is a prominent feature in Holding Hands, and again, themes within the music and visuals, both light and dark in nature, appear. It’s as if, no matter how things seem to change, there are also constants with our life, or lives.

Soon, we arrive at Patience, which could be seen as revisiting the sonic and optical themes of Dulce Keket; we may progress in a linear direction, but the past walks beside us. As an audiovisual work, it gets you to think, and that is a valuable trait to have within a piece of art, because from those thoughts comes, well, renewal and rebirth.

ANIMOXIE – Starstone Saga: The Eternal Lives of Keket was released on the 21st of April and is available to stream on Spotify and download on Bandcamp. Learn more about mOXIE mOTIVE, Matthew Nurse, and the album on TikTok and Instagram.