Today I have the honor of introducing a project that’s been in development for almost two years.
In early 2008 I talked to my friend Michael about making an album for my then-new music company, Normative. He had an exciting concept: build a musical contraption, a one-man-band “rig” that looked like a big metal box, but unfolded to reveal a platform, stool, drum kit, keyboard stand, looping pedals, and a guitar. He would build the box, then make an album that could be performed live, by himself, in one sitting. I said, Sounds incredible, here’s some money, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
He spend 4 solitary months building the sexiest, manliest instrument I’d ever seen, a few days writing the music, and another few months recording it. The album wasn’t just ‘a bunch of songs’ but a continuous story about a boy who was born laughing and whose legs kicked relentlessly, whose movement was impossible to control, who could not sleep, whose parents “took shifts, a steady rotation of looking after him, while the other one would sleep out in the car,” drumming on every conceivable surface, pounding the parents’ belongings to smithereens, immune to adult anti-psychotic medication … an individual incapable, by his nature, of being restrained; his bombastic inner fire and innocence; his relentless and violent quest for peace, and his eventual triumph.
After wrapping the record, I asked my favorite illustrator Ira if he wanted to do something kind of… weird. Let’s not make a music video and let’s not make ‘album art’. Ira, can you make a loooonnnng illustration that scrolls across the viewer’s screen for the entire 45 minute album? He said, Sounds good, pay up and I’ll get back to you in a few months.
The months dragged on (but who cares when ART MUST EXIST WITHOUT COMPROMISE?) … And he returned with 50 feet of painstakingly, achingly detailed and imaginative, hand-drawn art. Totally original stuff — the sort of magic you only get when one brilliant person tunnels into an impossibly ambitious project for a really long time.
We stitched it together in After Effects, synched it with the music, and uploaded it to Vimeo. And now, well, here it is, you can watch this “illustrative score”, this new and beautiful thing, two single-minded visions gracefully interwoven like … like snakes having sex!
But don’t watch it now, here in the Tumblr dashboard, with the lights on, your hand on your mouse, looking for the next nano-meme to microstimulate you. When you click the link below, be prepared to invest 45 minutes with your headphones on, the lights off, seated comfortably, and with fullscreen on. This is the real deal, people, and I promise it is worth watching.
Nothing inspires me more than iron-clad dedication and steadfast resolve. Holy crap.
