By Odeisel
After an incredibly inventive video for their previous record “The Rest of My Life,” Yellowbirds frontman Sam Cohen was approached by Dumbo, NY artist Michael Arthur with the idea of doing a collaboratory video featuring his art and Cohen’s collage-based execution for a new video. Arthur, an acclaimed artist in his own right, has been featured in Vanity Fair and The New York Times. His work features not pencil or background sketching/framing but straight to the canvas watercolors.
The idea was to use the same stop motion animation process with Arthur’s artwork as the base subject to create a video for the Yellowbirds track “The Reason.” The 1,650 frames of stop motion collage were created by Cohen using a decade’s worth of work from Arthur’s personal collection. According to Cohen:
“Michael Arthur saw the Yellowbirds’ “The Rest Of My Life” video and asked if I wanted to collaborate on another collage video. When I went to his studio, he opened up a locker containing 10 years worth of notebooks filled with amazing drawings and told me I could use them in any way. I marked the pages I thought I could animate and he scanned them for me and in some cases water colored them. He also made some new drawings specifically for the video.”
The song itself is short and sweet at less than two minutes. It’s full of the Yellowbirds’ trademarked 60’s revisited sound, rife with energy despite themes whose depth belie the good feel of the music. As you could expect, the video is a labor of love with interlocking pieces showcasing brilliant art. Their movement flows along with the music and perfectly conveys the feel of the track.
Score another win for originality and creativity. “The Reason” is a lively, introspective track and the visuals go past the effort usually given by an era of music that relies more and more on visuals of the artist. By not appearing in the video, Cohen adds a mystique to his music that adds to the myth of the Yellowbirds.
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