Halloween is over but Flying Lotus’ new video is there to stay and will probably give us nightmares for the rest of our life, or at least the rest of this year… God is this animation horrible, creepy, gore, disgusting, gross…?
Sure the music is weird too, and the album is entitled ‘You’re Dead’ after all, but why all these deformed people, crawling spider eyes, babies with worms coming out of their mouths, cannibal people with lizard tongues and exploding guts? Was that necessary? It was the perfect video for the season but I guarantee this is gonna be the most grotesque cartoon you’ll see for a while… oh I forgot, Flying lotus is decapitated at the beginning then cut in pieces later, I hope you have a solid stomach. Is there a meaning in all this? That’s the question! I am not so sure but I see it as a really bad trip, as nightmares and dreams do not have a hidden meaning and agenda contrarily to common belief, they are just regurgitations of your brain’s random thoughts, just as this video seems to be. But, beside the obvious death imagery, there is a lot of brain-gut connection going through the repulsive cartoon, and isn’t it the point of music? Gut to brain to gut? Also, a lot comes out Flying Lotus’ head/brain, this is where his music is created, music which is destined to feed people?Oh may be I am going too far.
But what about the music in all this? This may be the problem, when the images are this strong they take over and occupy your whole thoughts… and what’s left for Flying Lotus’ austere, abstract and minimalist music? Not much I may be afraid.
The animated video for the track ‘Ready Err Not, directed by David Firth (of “Salad Fingers” fame) sure lets all the morbid coming out with even some sexual scenes that made YouTube put the video in the age-restricted category! The first time I watched it, I wondered what was going on, but it is actually fascinating if you are into the morbid, and this could well be a cross between Roland Topor’s violent illustrations and Monty Python’s Flying Circus’s delirium.
