Category: Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Drew Citron Releases a Cinematic Ode to “King of New York” for Gorgeous Solo Debut Single “Summertime”

Drew Citron is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music venue owner who’s been a New York indie scene mainstay. She can trace the origins of her professional career to being a touring member of Frankie Rose’s backing band and with The Pains of Being Pure of Heart. Along with Class Actress’ Scott Rosenthal, she formed acclaimed act Beverly and opened Bushwick, Brooklyn-based music venue Alphaville. 

Citron’s solo debut Free Now is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through Park The Van — and the album reportedly finds Citron rediscovering herself as an artist, following the break up of her longtime relationship with her bandmate and business partner Scott Rosenthal. And as a result the album’ material is a roadmap to the evolution of a performer taking complete ownership of her craft and work in every element of the creative process with Citron engineering, producing and playing most of the instruments on an album that finds her collaborating with Rosenthal, Sam Owens (a.k.a Sam Evian), Ash’s Tim Wheeler, Danny Taylor and John Agnello. 

Free Now’s first single is the slow-burning “Summertime.” Featuring  a gorgeous and atmospheric arrangement featuring shimmering guitars, a soaring string arrangement, shuffling drumming and Citron’s achingly plaintive vocals, the track manages to sound both anachronistic and cinematic — while being centered around earnest yet ambitious songwriting. Sonically, the track reminds me a bit of Amber Arcade’s Cannonball EP– specifically “Wouldn’t Even Know” — but at its core its a sweet and much-needed hopeful song about new love with the wistful ache of knowing that too will fade. “A nostalgic song about summer feels more prescient than ever,” Citron explains. “Missing summer, loving it, living for late afternoon beach beers, god I’m missing summer already and it’s barely started. This is a sweet little song about new love in summer, not wanting it to end, wanting to hold on to that feeling.”

The recently released video for “Summertime” is a cinematically shot and deceptively mischievous homage to King of New York that has a wistfully nostalgic ache for all of the things we can’t quite have right now as a result of pandemic-related shutdowns. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: JOVM Mainstay Nana Adjoa Releases a Skittish and Hopeful Ode to Change

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the rising Amsterdam-born and-based Ghanian-Dutch singer/songwriter  and multi-instrumetnalist  Nana Adjoa.  And with the release of her debut effort Down at the Root, Part 1, the Ghanian-Dutch singer/songwriter received attention across the European Union for an easy-going and warm 70s singer/songwriter soul sound and approach that brought Bill Withers and others.

The Dutch-born JOVM mainstay can trace the origins of her music career to when she joined her first band as a teenager. At the time, she chose to play bass because “every other instrument had been claimed,” she recalls with a laugh. Unbeknownst to Adjoa, her mother had once played bass in a Ghanian Highlife band and still happened to have her guitar. Adjoa went on to the prestigious Amsterdam Conservatory, where she studied jazz — electric bass and double bass; however, she found the experience wasn’t what she imagined it to be. “It was very much like school,” she says in press notes. “We thought we wanted to go to the most difficult department, that we wanted to be the best, but it wasn’t a very fun experience.”

Interestingly, around the same time, Adjoa bean to experience a growing divide between the restrictive and theoretical compositions she was studying in school and the melodic, free-flowing music she’d play while jamming with friends, outside of school.  She quickly realized that pursuing a solo career was the best direction for her, so she recruited local musicians and started recording her own material. Since the release of Down at the Root, Part 1 and its follow-up, Down at the Root, Part 2, Adjoa has developed a reputation for being a restless sonic explorer, who has crafted material centered around deft poeticism and an adventurous yet accessible sense of musicianship. Adjoa set out to write her full-length debut at the beginning of last year. Working in her own studio, she not only had the freedom to write and record songs nearly simultaneously, she had a wide palette of instruments at her disposal. The end result is her forthcoming full-length debut, the Wannes Salomé-produced Big Dreaming Ants, slated for a September 24, 2020 release.

Reportedly lush yet delicate, intimate yet expansive and moody yet hopeful, the album’s material is features a diverse array of multi-layered tonal textures — including thumb piano, vibraphone and a vintage harmonium along with guitar, bass, vocals, etc. Although Adjoa — who, typically plays guitar on stage — handled, the majority of the album’s instrumentation herself, the album features a collection of Amsterdam’s finest players collaborating with her, including the members of her live band: Mats Voshol (drums), Daniel van Loenen (trombone), Tim Schakel (guitar), Jonas Pap (strings) and Eelco Topper (vibraphone). Thematically,  the album reveals a young artist poised to make a clear and concise artistic statement, in which she continues an ongoing search for identity while pondering life’s great philosophical questions. “For me,” she says, “music is a way to believe in something deeper.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles: the shimmering, hook driven “Throw Stones,” which featured a narrator desperately trying to calm themself and their emotions in the face of internet trolls, digital clashes and the overall uncertainty of our world — and the trippy and expansive “No Room,” which featured elements of shoegaze, indie rock and Afro pop. “I Want to Change,” Big Dreaming Ants’ latest single is a delicate, track centered around plucked strings, atmospheric electronics and Adjoa’s achingly tender vocals, the track expresses a skittish yet hopeful view of change and evolution — both internally and externally. Massive changes are coming y’all — and we all know it.

“The desire to change is a weird feeling and brings with it a dichotomy of emotions. You get a sense of wanting to move forward, of getting out of a (perhaps self-imposed) rut, but you also fear leaving behind the comfort and security of what you know,” Adjoa says. “With ‘I Want To Change,’ I’m giving space to an inner voice that quietly yearns for change and amplifying it in a way, calling for change that speaks to both the global and individual scale. I wrote the song over a year ago, now placing it in the context of the current state of the world, that inner voice feels more like a call to action for myself.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: The Death Wheelers Perform “Ditchfinder General”

With the release of their full-length debut, 2018’s I Tread On Your Grave, the rising Canadian act The Death Wheelers — Max “The Axe” Tremblay, Richard “Bastard” Turcotte, Sy “Wild Rye” Tremblay and Hugo “Red Beard” Bertacchi — have developed a sound that’s largely inspired by the aesthetics and ethos of bikesploitation movies like The Wild Angels, Werewolves on Wheels and Psychomania — and Dave Allen, The Cramps, Motörhead, The Stooges, and Grand Funk Railroad.

The Canadian metal act’s forthcoming album Divine Filth is slated for a September 11, 2020 release through RidingEasy Records, and the album will reportedly continue the band’s reputation for crafting, sleazy, head banging instrumental anthems that also simultaneously serve as the soundtrack for fictional bikesploitation films. While naturally centered around power-chord driven riffage, the album sonically finds the band drawing from Motörhead, The Cramps and Dick Dale.

Recorded in a breakneck series of live sessions, Divine Filth is all killer, no-filler, no bullshit scuzzinness with a layer of juvenile crassness that happily recalls Troma Films. Their sophomore album is loosely based around a fantastically dumb yet pretty fucking awesome plot synopsis: It’s 1982. Spurcity is run-down,The crime rate is up and so is drug use. A new kind of kick has hit the streets and it ain’t pretty. DTA, a powerful and highly addictive hallucinogenic drug, is transforming its loyal citizens into undead trash. Its users experience an indescribable high, but it leaves them rotting away within days, craving human flesh. No one knows who is dealing this new potent drug, but rumour has it that the motorcycle cult, The Death Wheelers, is behind this concoction. Could this be the end of civilization as we know it? What is motivating this group of psychotic individuals?

Last month, I wrote about the sludgy, The Sword-like album single “Corps Morts.” Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Ditchfinder General” is arguably the most expansive ripper they’ve released to date as it features elements of Dick Dale surf rock, crusty Headbanger’s Ball-era riffage  and dashes of prog rock experimentalism — thanks to an atmospheric and brooding bridge. Continuing their reputation for a cinematic take on metal, “Ditchfinder General” sounds as though it would be part of a movie’s key scene — in my mind, it’d be early on, when the protagonists and antagonists are introduced and defined to the viewer. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Release a Menacing and Trippy Visual for Mind-Bending “Sweet Freak”

Currently featuring core trio Dylan Sizemore (vocals), multi-instrumentalist Josh Menashe and Shaughnessy Starr (drums), the Los Angeles-based psych rock act Frankie and the Witch Fingers can trace their origins back to their formation about a decade ago in Bloomington, IN. Since the band’s formation the band has developed and honed a reputation for restless experimentation, multiple permutations and a high-powered, scuzzy take on psych rock, centered around absurdist lyrical imagery — fueled by hallucinations, paranoia and lust. And as a result, the band’s material manages to be simultaneously playful and menacing. 

With the addition of Shaughnessy Starr, the Los Angeles-based psych rock act went through another sonic mutation that resulted in a lysergic and claustrophobic sound — while further relying on their penchant for Black Sabbath-style riffage. Building upon a growing profile, the members of the Los Angeles-based act has opened for the likes of JOVM mainstays Thee Oh Sees, Cheap Trick and ZZ Top. 

Written while on the road, the act’s forthcoming album Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . . is slated for an October 2, 2020 release through Greenway Records and Levitation Festival’s label The Reverberation Appreciation Society. Recorded in a breakneck five day recording session, the highly-anticipated follow up to ZAM, Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters finds the band taking the turbulence of its immediate predecessor and making the material much more insidious, evil and ambitious while capturing the band in the midst of massive personnel changes — longtime bassist Alex Bulli left the band, and as a result the band’s Menashe wrote and played most of the material’s bass parts with occasional contributions from Dylan Sizemore. Much like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Infest the Rats Nest, Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ forthcoming album sees the band crafting expansive, maximalist material — with fewer moving parts. (Interestingly, Death Valley Girls’ Nikki Pickle will join the band as a touring member.) 

“Sweat Freak,” Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters . . .’s latest single features crunchy, power chord-driven riffs, punchily delivered yet surrealistic lyrics and explosive horn blasts within an expansive, constantly morphing and expansive song structure. Sonically, the result is a song that’s one part King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard one part Stooges and one part Tool-like prog rock with a menacing and malicious air. 

Done by Spaghetti Jesus, the recently released claymation video for “Sweat Freak” features trippy visual effects by Slob Dylan and 2D animation by Mitchell Zeni — and the video is centered around monstrous aliens performing weird and bloody experiments on people and each other.  It’s hilariously disturbing and absolutely brilliant. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hippo Campus’ Jake Luppen Releases a Glistening 80s-Inspired Pop Confection

Jake Luppen hasa risen to prominence for being the frontman and guitarist of acclaimed St. Paul, MN-based indie rock act Hippo Campus. While touring between 2018 and 2019 to support Hippo Campus’ most recent album Bambi, Luppen started writing new material as a n escape from the grind of endless tour and as way to process major and stress life events — in particular, the discovery by CT scan of an abnormal mass on his brain, which left him with the immediate impression that he was dying. 

Interestingly, the material Luppen started to write during that Bambi tour didn’t quite fit with his primary gig — and the end result was Luppen’s solo recording project Lupin. Luppen’s solo, full-length debut as Lupin is slated for an October 9, 2020 release through Grand Jury Music,  and as the Hippo Campus frontman explains in press notes, the album’s songs feel like he was meeting himself for the first time.  “With this record I wanted to get to the point, and say how things were, as opposed to dancing around them.”

For the Hippo Campus frontman, the creative process being the album was one of self-discovery that led to a much deeper self-confidence, in which he learned who he could be — and always had been — as an artist and as a person. With his previously released work in Hippo Campus, Luppen took a much vaguer approach to his songwriting, frequently eschewing the personal in favor of broader, shared experiences of his bandmates. Striking out as a solo artist allowed (and perhaps, even forced) him to do the complete opposite. Instead of focusing on looser ideas and generalities, Luppen found the bravery to write about his life — including, the breakup of a long-tern relationship, the aforementioned health scare, sexual exploration and discovering his own personhood with incisiveness, earnestness and honesty. 

Co-produced by Luppen and BJ Burton, Luppen’s debut effort is centered around sobering thematic concerns — but is paired with a bright and infectious soundscape reportedly inspired by by Charli XCX’s Pop 2, Tears for Fears, 80s New Wave and Prince. Fueled by Luppen’s desire to make 80s music through modern technology — or should i say 80s music for the 2020s? — the album also features synth and programming contributions from Jim-E-Stack and Buddy Ross. The end result is a shimmering yet off-kilter pop sheen that Luppen has said was guided more by intuition and feeling than anything else. 

The learning curve of producing his own material, being singularly at the helm of his sound for the first time, as well as writing his most personal material to date was a deeply vulnerable experience. An experience, in which he reconciled that it was okay to be his true, weird and sensitive self, to make mistakes and to enjoy the parts of himself and his personality that he usually didn’t have an opportunity to indulge. “I spent a lot of time thinking I had to hide behind other people or other things, but I realized, ‘No, I’m fully capable of doing this myself, I’m fully capable of having this vision.” Luppen explains. “I didn’t think that I was but no, there was this whole other part of myself I’d been stowing away out of fear this entire time.”

“May,” the album’s first single is a shimmering, 80s synth pop banger, centered around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering and thumping beats, an infectious hook and Luppen’s achingly tender falsetto delivery. Sonically speaking, the song brings Prince, Gordon Voidwell and Cut Copy to mind as it’s a hook-driven, pop confection built around earnest (yet kaleidoscopic) songwriting. 

The recently released video for “May” is a rotoscoped, animated visual made by Adam Fuchs. While capturing and evoking the song’s shimmering, kaleidoscopic vibe, the video feels like a hallucinogenic fever dream. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Meridian Brothers Release a Dystopian Yet Hopeful New Single

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written quite a bit about Bogota, Colombia-based singer/songwriter, guitarist, Eblis Alvarez, who’s perhaps better known as the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed, forward-thinking cumbia act Meridian Brothers. Now, as you may recall, Meridian Brothers newest album Cumbia Siglo XXI is salted for an August 21, 2020 release through Bongo Joe Records — and the album, which is the highly-anticipated follow-up to the act’s critically applauded (and largely acoustic) ¿Dónde estás María? continues the Colombian artist’s long-held reputation for restlessly pushing his sound and approach in new and radical directions whenever possible. 

Largely inspired by Cumbia Siglo XX’s experimentation with traditional cumbia in the late ’70s and early ’80s, which led to a completely new form of the genre, Cumbia Siglo XXI sees Alvarez using a multitude of guitars, synths, algorithmic software, vintage drum machines and whatever tech that the acclaimed Colombian artist could get his hands on. The end result is material that seemingly draws from Kraftwerk, while blending EDM “sidechain” techniques and traditional cumbia.

I’ve written about two album singles so far: “Puya del Empressario,” an infectious yet let field take on cumbia that sounded a bit like like The Man Machine-era Kraftwerk meets JOVM mainstay El Dusty with a mischievous sense of adventurousness — and “Los Golpeadores de la cumbia,” a mischievous synthesis of chip tune, electro pop and cumbia that came from the Island of Misfit Toys. The album’s latest single  “Cumbia de la fuente,” is a yearning and plaintive track centered around strummed acoustic guitar, glitchy synths and glitchier drum machines and Alvarez’s aching vocal delivery.  And while sounding as though it came from some incredibly dystopian future — one just as hellish as our own — the song conveys a sense of hope for something beyond this. 

“‘Cumbia de la fuente’ is a stopping point of the whole theme of the record, both in lyrics and in sound concept,” Meridian Brothers’ Alvarez says in press notes. “rThe song is a prayer and an amulet, a search for something that modern human beings are not used to do, due to mechanisation and modern industrial societies. A scream to the nowhere, looking for some answer, which is not given by scientific fetichism nor the political argument, nor the philosophic reason.”

The recently released video for “Cumbia de la fuente” features some trippy and brightly colored drawings that seem inspired by an intense hallucinogenic trip. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Mint Field Release a Cinematic and Mediative Visual for Lush and Slow-Burning Single “Delicadeza”

Initially founded in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico by Estrella del Sol Sanchez and Amor Amezcua, the Mexican shoegazer act quickly received international attention with the release of their debut EP Primeras Salidas, eventually playing sets across the North American festival circuit, including Coachella and SXSW, as well as venues across both the States and their native Mexico. Building upon a growing profile, Mint Field’s full-length debut, 2018’s Pasar De Las Luces found the act establishing a clearer sense of what they wanted to do sonically — primarily, as a result of finally having access to the tools to do so. The end result was an album’s worth of material that drew from dream pop, krautrock, stoner rock and shoegaze, imbued with sorrow and nostalgia. 

The past couple of years since the release of Pasar De Las Luces has been rather eventful for the Mexican shoegazer act: they’ve toured extensively across the North America and the European Union, playing over 100 shows. Continuing that momentum, the band recorded Pasar De Las Luces’ follow-up, last year’s  Mientras Esperas EP, which they supported with further touring across the States, Canada and Mexico — with two sold out shows in Mexico City .

During that same period, the band relocated to Mexico City and upon relocating to the Mexican capital, the band went through a massive lineup change: Amor Amezcua left the band, and the band then expanded into a trio with the addition of Sebastian Neyra and the band’s newest member, Ulrika Spacek’s Callum Brown. Capping off a series of monumental changes for the acclaimed Mexican act, they signed to Los Angeles-based post punk label Felte Records,

Slated for a September 25, 2020 release, the band’s Syd Kemp-produced sophomore album Sentimiento Mundial was recorded at London’s Wilton Way Studio, and the album reportedly sees the band’s sound shifting towards a decidedly minimal, rhythmically focused approach. The album will feature the meditative “Natural,” and the motorik groove-driven “Contingencia,” which were both released earlier this year. Sentimiento Mundal’s third and latest single “Delicadeza” is a lushly textured song centered around del Sol Sanchez’s ethereal vocals, swirling and shimmering, pedal effected guitars and propulsive drumming that manages to recall the lengthy introductory sections to Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)” and A Storm in Heaven-era The Verve– but while being fittingly delicate. 

Directed and shot by 26 year-old Mexico City-based filmmaker Santiago Padilla Arouesty, the recently released video is a cinematic and meditative portrait of our zeitgeist — one in which our sanity, well-being and humanity are held together by an extremely delicate thread. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Maltese Indie Act Beesqueeze Releases a Trippy and Summery Anthem

Beesqueeze is a Siggiewi, Malta-based duo, comprised of Kriz Zahra (guitar, bass, synth, vocals) and Chris Mallia (drums, vocals, guitar, effects) that specializes in what they’ve dubbed alterdelic (alternative + psychedelic) dance rock, influenced by The Strokes, MGMT, Tame Impala, Gorillaz and Pixies among others. And with their debut EP, 2017’s Crowd Control, the duo quickly established their unique sound, as well as a reputation for an explosive live show. 

The band is currently holed up in their small home studio working on their full-length debut, which is slated for an Autumn 2020 release. In the meantime, the Maltese duo’s latest single, the David Vella co-produced “Say You Do” is breezy and anthemic track centered around propulsive synth arpeggios, thumping kick drum, strummed acoustic guitar, a blazing guitar solo, and breathily delivered vocals. And while being a summery, dance floor friendly track that reveals the duo’s unerring knack to craft an infectious hook reminiscent of Evil Heat-era Primal Scream, the song encourages the listener to be bold and express their desires. By doing so, you may actually get what you want you want and need. 

“I do some work in a cool friendly bar and many times I get newcomers asking me to do a special drink or cocktail or something that’s not on the menu so I usually say ‘yes.’ I go head getting this [drink] together, now this always happens: I can notice one of the regulars staring at me, giving the look, like [they’re’] trying to say ,’Hey, what’s that. That’s new! I want it!’ but says nothing. So then I’m like ‘Hey due, if you want one, just say you want one, it’s okay,” the band’s Chris Mallia says of the song’s inspiration. 

“The song came together fast. We were preparing for a small show and I thought this new synth I got off a friend on the same day just for fun. Chris was on guitar going through these chords and I just plugged in the synth, and it happened like that,” Kriz Zahra says of the song’s creative process. “10 minuets later, we were listening to it on this lo-fi recording and we thought it was good. So we recorded it a few days later. I remember it was a quick and smooth process, just how we like it.” 

Directed by the members of Besqueeze, the recently released video features the band performing the song in front of bright, neon colored backgrounds and trippy effects — and as a result, the video captures the band’s energy and the song’s overall lysergic feel. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French Genre-Defying Act Jahlover Releases a Summery Club Banger

Jahlover is a unique and emerging French that boldly and defiant defies genre and sonic boundaries — and although they’re primarily a reggae act, their sound features elements of several different genres and styles including zouk, salsa, hip-hop, Afrobeat, rumba, rock and pop. Interestingly, as a result of their globe-spanning sound, the act’s lyrics are written and sung in several different languages. While being commercially accessible, the act’s overall objective is to use their music for just and righteous causes — to promote justice and equality for all, preserving and protecting Mother Earth and of course, to be anti-racist. So overall their goal is to spread positive messages of love, peace, understanding and kindness to all. 

The French act’s latest single “Do You Feel (Ressens Tu) is a breezy and summery banger centered around a sinuous bass line, twinkling percussion, stuttering beats and sultry vocals singing lyrics in English and French, plus an old-school spoken word section delivered in a baritone reminiscent of Boyz 2 Men — and as a result, the song manages to further cement their globalist, Pan African sound while being remarkably upbeat. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Tame Impala Releases a Lysergic Visual for “Is It True”

Over the course of this site’s 10 year history, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Perth, Australia-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and JOVM mainstay Kevin Parker, the creative mastermind behind the critically acclaimed and commercially successful psych pop/synth pop project Tame Impala.

Parker’s third Tame Impala album, 2015’s Currents was a critical and commercial breakthrough: released to wide-ranging critical applause across the blogosphere and elsewhere the album was a RIAA Gold-Certified, Grammy-nominated effort that revealed a decided change in direction for Parker’s songwriting and sound, as it featured some of his most emotionally direct lyrics paired with a nuanced and textured sound that drew from and meshed elements of psych rock, psych pop, prog rock, synth pop and R&B.

Released earlier this year, Parker’s fourth Tame Impala effort The Slow Rush continued an impressive and enviable run of critically applauded and commercially material, but unlike its immediate predecessor, the album thematically focuses on the rapid passing of time and life’s infinite cycles of creation and destruction — with the material conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones and events whizzing by you while you’re staring at your phone. “A lot of the songs carry this idea of time passing, of seeing your life flash before your eyes, being able to see clearly your life from this point onwards. I’m being swept by this notion of time passing. There’s something really intoxicating about it,” Parker told the New York Times.

I’ve managed to write about four of the album’s previous release singles — the upbeat “Patience,” a single which seamlessly bridged ’90s house and ’70s funk while being a meditation on the cycles and phrases of life; “Borderline,” a hook-driven, blissed out track with house music flourishes; It Might Be Time,”a swaggering prog rock meets psych pop anthem featuring shimmering synth arpeggios, thumping beats and an enormous hook; and “Lost in Yesterday,” a woozy and lysergic, disco-tinged banger that explored time’s distorting effect on perspective and memories that suggested that given enough time, nostalgia gives even the most embittering times in your life, a rosy tinge and a sense of purpose and meaning that may not have actually existed.

The Slow Rush’s fifth and latest single “Is It True” continues a run of swooning yet dance floor friendly material featuring handclap led percussion, synth arpeggios, Parker’s plaintive falsetto an enormous hook and a shimmering and dreamy bridge held together by a sinuous bass line. And while dance floor friendly, the track focuses on the seeming impermanence and confusion of love, and the countless paths our lives can take with just one single decision. In the song’s case, the decision is whether or not its narrator tells an object of affection how he feels for her — with the understanding that whatever happens will be life altering.

The recently released video for “Is It True” features Parker on a TV screen singing the song and rocking out to it — in front of flashing and rapidly morphing background and trippy lighting effects. At one point we see Parker laying in grassy, technicolor field, adding to the overall lysergic feel.