There's some old interview somewhere where kind of a beatmaker, basically an electronic musician Flying Lotus, talks about comics--specifically Grant Morrison's The Filth--but I can't find it and I guess that would justify this post?
On the nerd tip still though, Lotus also does a lot of the coming-back-from and going into a commercial break music for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, but the goofball background animation and overall out-there concept of this video should entertain anybody reading this. There's also just a general trend in comics and visual art towards this day-glo sloppiness and you see it in tons of "street" fashion or, as Karen mentioned here, in the work of Brian Chippendale and others.
If you aren't totally distracted by the visuals and actually listen to "Parisian Goldfish"--probably the best track on Lotus' recent Los Angeles--there's a ton to bliss-out to. Everything's sort of maxed-out and a little full of static and squelchy and anchored by this cowbell workout break that Lotus puts every production trick over. It gets chopped-up, it awkwardly repeats, he adds more sounds over top of it, and he piles the break atop itself into a mechanical CD-skip-like repetition and then takes it away to just play the loop to glorious effect a minute and fifty second or so in.
For awhile, I was totally convinced the cowbell break was from New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" and Lotus totally chopped it up every which way, but a MySpace message ("you're hearing things but not bad things to hear i guess") from Lotus revealed I was dead-wrong.
And while we're not talking about comics at all anyway, here's Lotus' remix of "A Milli", called "Robo Tussin". What's interesting about this remix is how Lotus' weirdo, blissed-out beat is still only like half as weird and out-there as Bangladesh's original beat for "A Milli". Still, it's a really great remix with fun little tricks like looping the "you ain't got shit" line, skipping over the "faggot" line, and just diving headfirst into layers of watery synths, clapping drums, and 8-bit video game wobbles. Doesn't sound much like a track called "Robo Tussin" though...
Bonus video for "Bizarre Love Triangle":
Great video and song.
ReplyDeleteFun facts that you may all ready know: The dude who directed the video (Eric Wareheim) is from Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.
The co-director (Eric Fensler) is the guy who did those re-dubbed GI Joe PSAs. The animator is this guy Devin Flynn who does this really whacked out but petty funny animation show called Y'all So Stupid.
Which's name is taken from the Hiphop group with the overrated-underrated album with the hilarious title "Van Full Of Pakistans". There you're back on music after almost getting it on topic.
ReplyDeleteOh man haha, I didn't know that was a rap group. The cover of their album looks pretty great too. I'm gonna check it out.
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