Video: The Chemical Brothers – Free Yourself
Today The Chemical Brothers share the official video for their new song, “Free Yourself.” Eight months in the making, in collaboration with production company, Outsider, and content creation studio, The Mill, the video uses cutting edge visual effects and motion capture technology to tell a near-future story of factory robots freeing themselves. “Free Yourself” is available for purchase and streaming HERE via Astralwerks. View the official video HERE:
The video was directed by Dom&Nic, the creative duo who have worked with The Chemical Brothers over a period of twenty-two years and have worked on videos including “Hey Boy Hey Girl,” “Block Rockin’ Beats,” “Setting Sun” and the award-winning video “Wide Open” from the band’s 2015 album Born In The Echoes.
Of working on “Free Yourself,” Dom&Nic said: “Why would artificial intelligence behave any different to humans discovering music and dance for the first time?
We’ve all seen humans dancing brilliantly like robots, we’ve also seen robots dancing brilliantly like robots, but you’ve never seen robots dancing badly like humans. That’s new…
The Chemical Brothers’ music allows people to get out of their box at a gig or listening to the record – it’s a moment of frenzied abandonment to the music. We wanted to capture that feeling in the idea of an oppressed robot workforce suddenly abandoning themselves to music and fun. It’s robots having fun, robots being silly and robots raving!
It’s a black comedy and an observation or conversation about the possible future relationship between robots, artificial intelligence and humans. Maybe we don’t have anything to be scared of, why do we think the worst about AI and humanity?
We imagined a near future where robots had become a sentient underclass and we felt sorry for them and wanted to imagine them finding a way to free themselves, have fun and dance.
Tom and Ed are the best people to make music videos for, their music always inspires great visual ideas and stories and as artists they are incredibly supportive of the creative vision.
We just couldn’t have made a film like this without the total commitment and dedication from the VFX team at The Mill, they took it on purely for creative endeavor. It’s our second such collaboration with them on a Chemical Brother’s music video and in both cases, they have had to break new ground in the world visual effects.
The project took seven months from first idea to finished film.
It’s tonally completely different to Wide Open but again explores a theme of dance and a non-typical version of the human form and we hope people will find it a worthy follow up.
During the production on this film a cartoon was published in the New Yorker. It showed a couple of robots in a laboratory doing some moves and the quote from the scientist in the picture was “it appears they don’t want to take over, they just want to Dance!” we knew we were on the right tracks when we saw this.”
Wes, of The Mill, says: “We are thrilled to be involved in another Dom&Nic and The Chemical Brothers collaboration. Following on from the success of ‘Wide Open’ in 2016, ‘Free Yourself’ presented us with the challenge of designing and animating hundreds of robots, continuing the theme that runs through many of The Chemical Brother’s videos – dance.
This is the kind of VFX work that encouraged many of The Mill’s artists to get into the industry and, by continuing to push the boundaries of creative excellence, we hope to inspire the next generation of artists. It’s a project that enabled and required us to experiment with new motion capture technology, using our expertise to capture dance moves on set, in the studio, and in-house at The Mill.
To be entrusted with bringing Dom&Nic’s vision to life is a real privilege. It’s been a huge team effort over a eight month period and I’m proud that ‘Free Yourself’ has manifested into a standout piece of work that showcases what The Mill does best –high-end, photo-real visual effects work.”
“Free Yourself” is the latest track from legendary duo The Chemical Brothers, a song which already proved to be a highlight of the bands spectacular new live set at festivals across Europe this Summer.
GROJ – Bunk Up
‘microCastle returns for its third release of 2018, welcoming Kevin Jamey aka Groj to the label for his debut EP…’
Anton Lanski – Faulty EP (FAUXPAS 28)
Anton Lanski was born and grew up in a small industrial city with a strange name – Izhevsk. The factory town back in the days. Music has always accompanied me. And as in any movie the soundtrack changed from scene to scene, from year to year, from mood to mood. This record is a collection of sketches. This is the music of a vast factory area, poorly lit parks, and dark alleys. Music of bridge along the waterfront and a huge artificial pond. An oath to love and an ode to hate. Vinyl tastes better…
Releases November 16, 2018
Lapalux – ABOVE BETWEEN BELOW
Stuart Howard aka Lapalux surfaces with a limited edition ambient cassette on Brainfeeder, drawing inspiration from the journey through life, death and the afterlife, split into three movements “ABOVE”, “BETWEEN” and “BELOW”.
“The process of making the record lends itself to the idea of a never ending cycle and a slowly developing loop, much akin to the feeling of what it is to be alive, to die, and the afterlife” he explains. “In order to portray this cyclic feeling I used a 4 track tape recorder and a looping cassette tape which I recorded short musical ideas on to. I then played them back at varied speed and would record another loop on another track and repeat this cycle till the 4 channels of audio could harmonically shift and blend into one another. Then I would use the fader controls on my 4 track recorder, whilst playing the audio back, to fade in and out the individual parts that form each movement. This is all recorded live and in one take.”
Lapalux takes his stunning live show (based around a unique modular rack) to the US/Canada in December 2018. He closes the Asian leg of the tour at Cakeshop in Seoul tonight after visiting Taipei, Jakarta, Bangkok and Singapore.
Cassette / Digital
https://lapalux.lnk.to/abb
1. ABOVE
2. BETWEEN
3. BELOW
Asia/US/Canada tour dates:
09 Nov – Cakeshop, Seoul, South Korea
29 Nov – Adelaide Hall, Toronto, ON: https://ticketf.ly/2QkgNgH
30 Nov – Newspeak, Montreal, QC: http://bit.ly/2oXv32l
01 Dec – Elsewhere, Brooklyn, NY: http://bit.ly/2ScgF3x
04 Dec – Hodi’s Half Note, Ft Collins, CO: https://ticketf.ly/2QmIjKz
05 Dec – Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom Otherside, Denver, CO: https://ticketf.ly/2O6rQs9
06 Dec – Deep Ellum, Dallas, TX: http://bit.ly/2QlwtjK
07 Dec – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco, CA: https://ticketf.ly/2x9OUA7
08 Dec – Los Globos, Los Angeles, CA: http://bit.ly/lapaluxglobos
Dave Seaman feat. Flowers & Sea Creatures – Attention Deficit
Soulfooled returns from its hiatus, refreshed, reinvigorated and set to unveil more wonderful sonic innovation. Since its launch in 2010, Alex Niggemann’s lovingly curated label has steadily established itself as a crucial platform for the finest talented artists. Always focused on searching out exceptional musical gems, it is this quality over quantity approach that has enabled the careful development of Soulfooled’s own distinctive style.
This next instalment presents the stunning coming together of Dave Seaman (one of the legends of electronic house music for the past 30 years) and Flowers & Sea Creatures. Having been launched in the electronic scene’s consciousness via their debut album on Ben Watt’s seminal Buzzin’ Fly label back in 2011, the decidedly un-egotistical Canadian outfit Flowers & Sea Creatures have stealthily maintained their impeccable underground credentials with a drip feed of releases on the likes of Compost, My Favourite Robot, Innervisions, Strange Town, Natura Sonoris and Dave Seaman’s Selador Recordings. In fact, it was an unused vocal track by the trio’s Graham Baxter, originally commissioned by Dave for another studio session that proved to be inspirational in the creation of ‘Attention Deficit’.
Opening with ‘Dave Seaman’s ADHD Mix’, a sparse percussive intro, steadily builds into a deeply engaging hypnotic whirlpool of vocalised anticipation. Mixing euphoric flourishes with tense atmospheres is the mark of a truly distinctive artist, and Dave Seaman’s extensive musical knowledge shines brightly throughout, blending a wide variety of elements to create a style very much his own. The ‘Flowers & Sea Creatures Mix’ sees the Canadian trio up the energy levels, add their own twist to the vocal arrangement and liberally sprinkle their distinctive magic dust over proceedings to create a spine-tingling, pulsating alternative version. Completing the package, Sweden’s ever-innovative Zoo Brazil blends a deliciously linear percussive backbone with his rarified blend of uplifting melodic motifs, resulting in a decidedly dynamic remix finale.
With the talents of Dave Seaman, Flowers & Sea Creatures, and Zoo Brazil joining an ever-growing family of superb artists, Soulfooled continues to grow into one of the finest labels around.
The Editors – Cold (UNKLE Remix)
Editors today release the UNKLE Remix for their latest single ‘Cold’. James Lavelle’s outfit have reworked the track, taking it to a whole other level.
‘Cold’ is the 4th single taken from their 6th studio album Violence, released in March via Play It Again Sam. The moving video, directed by celebrated artist Rahi Rezvani, was shot in Iceland and stars US ballet dancer Drew Jacoby. It’s dramatic, yet stark style perfectly compliments one of Violence’ stand out moments. Watch the video here.
