Eartheater’s “MacroEV” Video Is A Claymation Celebration Of Life
It sounds like kittens, and feels like spring.
Queens-based artist Eartheater's "MacroEV" reveals itself slowly, like half a dozen mewing kittens greeting the world for the first time. Taken from her debut solo album Metalepsis, out now on Chicago label Hausu Mountain, the track combines layers of pizzicato strings with almost-animal sounds that she achieved by elongating her body. "When recording the vocals I was stretching, sometimes in slight discomfort, towards physically unattainable heights," Eartheater, aka Alexandra Drewchin, told The FADER. She made the song in her home, "with the company of my cycad, a plant who's genetic makeup has hardly changed since prehistoric times unlike the rest of most living things."
This video by Amia Yokoyama only heightens the otherworldliness. "With stop-motion animation, hi-8 tape, and HD video, I wanted to create a landscape where static concepts of 'body' and 'place' could be dissolved in a hot cup of fantasy, giving way to a more viscous exploration of reality," Yokoyama explains. Apparently the collaboration came about after the video director had asked Drewchin to score her short film The Ungrounding, and they went on to make two versions: "one where the video follows the music, and another where the music follows the video." It's all very circle of life, so just the thing to woo in spring with.
Photo credit: Samantha West