Music: trickling water and tumbling salt grains are among the natural materials illuminated with flickering lights in Brazilian director Christophe Thockler's music video for Colleen's track I'm Kin.

Colleen – AKA French musician Cécile Schott – approached Thockler after watching his video for Mimi Goese and Ben Neill and asked him to represent the secret meanings that she penned in the lyrics.

"Colleen saw the video Cusp I did for Mimi Goese and Ben Neill and thought that I was the right director to create a music video for I'm Kin," he told Dezeen.

He added that the artist chose him "because of the lyrics, the hidden meanings of the song, and how I was working with objects".

Thockler said that the song and the vivid images it created in his mind provided the only inspiration for the video.

"We wanted to emphasise the meanings of the lyrics, and create a metaphoric and poetic work," Thockler said.

The words reference naturally occurring processes – stones sparking to make fire, melting ice – and the music is made using traditional instruments mixed with synthetic sounds.

"What strikes me in Colleen's music is that it's kind of ambient and electronica, but she works with real ancient instruments," Thockler said. "I wanted to express that dichotomy in the video, that's why I used organic elements and enhanced them with a sharp HD numeric feel."

Imagery used in the clip includes plants becoming drenched in a red blood-like liquid and water trickling down surfaces. Extreme close-up shots are interspersed with unusual lighting effects, created by filming blurred lights and glare reflected from vases and glasses.

The clips were shot using a mixture of video and stop motion to give the footage an eery atmosphere.

"One of the challenges was to make something homogenous with this mix of techniques, stop motion and video," said Thockler. "A huge part of the work was the editing, to make everything coherent, and fit the rhythm perfectly."

Thockler, who worked alone on the project, spent a month and a half conceptualising, shooting and editing the video.

I'm Sin is taken from Colleen's fifth album Captain of None, released in April 2015 by record label Thrill Jockey.