Queens of the Stone Age have just released a super cool new video for ‘Vampyre of Time and Memory’, the sad-lullaby-like song of their last album ‘…Like Clockwork’. Not only it’s cool but it’s interactive like a video game where you don’t actually win anything except to see a few close-ups of Josh Homme and cie. It’s also super macabre but not really scary, think Disneyland’s haunted house – there are even this spooky maid and lugubrious paintings – while offering some true Halloween leftovers if you care for some. Just look for the witch’s hand – the cursor of your mouse – which would guide you throughout the visit and will become red each time you can make a move. I got stuck a few times, but I am pretty bad at this kind of things and not all browsers will work with it. However, I finally found my way to explore the dark room full of old books, carnivorous plants, antics, QOTSA memorabilia, taxidermied animals, and an ageless bulgy-eyed woman coming straight from ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’. The only real sign of life comes from a window and a sort of jungle room where the band is playing in slow motion,… twice!
It’s very cool and inventive because you can play and replay the video and never watch the same thing twice, depending of what you are choosing to do. The coffin-piano is a great find, but Josh Homme has to get rid of his long manicured white fingernails! Last time I watched the video, I picked the chamber with the wild animals, it may look a bit creepy for most people, but I used to work at the Museum of Natural History, so…
This super-production is not your usual video and it was co-directed by Kii Arens and Jason Trucco and created and developed by Darknet in collaboration with the Creators Project. This is what they had to say about it:
‘Joshua Homme and company gave us the creative keys to the car from word ‘go, And Josh has a badass car. . . On the technology side, Darknet was the perfect forward-thinking company to push the boundaries of music video presentation. All art is technology, technology that shares an experience or an idea. ‘Vampyre’ uses all the tools available to us today to share a meaningful common experience.’
You can stream the normal format on YouTube (below) but you absolutely have to visit this website to experience the whole interactive thing: