Austin, TX’s psychedelic dance-pop auteur Ty Richards, is pleased to share his latest visual experience. This time for “Going out for a Cigarette,” Richards captures an animated trip experience reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons (on LSD). The track will appear on his upcoming debut full-length album, Zillion. Available February 3, 2017.
“It’s like old Saturday morning cartoons on acid,” Richards explains. “The ‘Going out for a Cigarette’ video was very amusing to make. I spent close to 100 hours on it. It was hard to be finished with it because I didn’t want to stop. When I started this video I only had one thing in mind. I wanted to make something that was animated and super trippy, with a very loose hand-drawn feel. I’m tired of seeing all these Pixar animated movies that are sterile as hell. Computers tend to suck the life out of my work. My favorite cartoon growing up was The Simpsons naturally. I especially love the pilot episode and cartoon shorts that existed before the show was a hit. All those old Klasky Csupo animations were super sloppy and I remember the line-work of the characters were all fucked up and wiggly. That is exactly what I wanted. I also got a lot of inspiration from the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Genius of Love’ music video from the early 80’s. So much animation everywhere, very maximalist. I wanted it to have a nostalgic feeling to it, but still feel new and stand apart from all the shiny videos that are out now.”
“The content for this video was created similar to how I’ve been writing songs lately – on a very abstract level. I started by making a list of things that can’t be undone. For example, you can’t unscramble an egg, or un-explode a volcano, or un-smoke a cigarette, or un-flush a toilet. Some things in life are irreversible. I think the hopelessness of those ideas overlay nicely
against the hopelessness of the relationship the lyrics talk about. I took that strange list and turned it into a bunch sharpie drawings, then scanned them into the computer and made designs from them with color. I animated the shit out of everything to my liking and voila. It’s strange and crude just like I wanted, but the visuals are filled with the same spirit and dumbness that this song has, along with the rest of the record. Enjoy!”
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