Earlier this week my new music video for The Orbweavers premiered on Tone Deaf and was selected as Rage’s “Wild One” music video (formerly Indie Of The Week). This project was a bit of a family affair, my older sister Marita being one half of The Orbweavers (her partner Stuart is the other half of the band), and once again my younger sister Molly lending her limbs in front of the camera. “Poison Garden” is out now on digital release on Mistletone Records via Inertia.
Earlier this month my music video for “Transponder” by Howe Gelb’s legendary band Giant Sand premiered on Stereogum. The video came about when I finished Gemma Ray’s “The Wheel” music video, Howe Gelb’s vocals feature on that track and after seeing the video for it he got in touch about working together. The animation features my sister Molly, who lives around the corner from me and is a really great illustrator and artist. I got Joe to photograph Molly in burst mode in front of our kitchen wall while I directed her to bend, stretch and cry. While I was in the middle of putting the video together Howe was coming through Berlin on tour, so it was great to be able to include him in the video, meet him in person and see him perform, the man is a genius.
Here is a music video I just made for British rock band Turbowolf. The above YouTube embed is probably blocked if you are in Germany, in that case you can watch it here on Vevo. I had to turn this video around as soon as I arrived back in Berlin from Melbourne early last month, but even with jet-lag and not being able to leave my studio for fairly intense period, I felt totally in my element putting this together.
I recently made this music video for Jonathan Jeremiah’s beautiful single Wildfire. The video was released in February and was created by combining some really lovely stop-motion paper animation by Joseph Jensen with my usual collage style animation. My original pitch for the video was a super technicolour sci-fi narrative that unfolded around a volcano spewing weird vibes, but after watching through my previous work Jonathan was really drawn to a black and white animation I made for Luluc many years ago, which was a straight-up homage to Busby Berkeley, so taking that as a starting-point we ended up with this, which I definitely think turned out to be a much better fit to the song than my original volcano idea.
Here is something new I made for Gemma Ray! I originally built a small-scale rotating stage on a lazy susan, intending to use an early rough version of this animation/motion graphic as a guide for a stop-motion idea I had. I thought my mini rotating stage was awesome (and so did Gemma), but eventually I had to admit the project would probably end up taking me a year to make (and I still have projects from a year ago that I really need to finish), so I scaled back and voila! The Wheel is from Gemma’s excellent album Milk For Your Motors out through Bronze Rat.
A couple of weeks ago my latest music video premiered over at The Huffington Post!
It’s Ray LaMontagne’s first ever music video, the Grammy awarded musician was very cool to work for and had some really nice things to say to the HuffPo about my work:
“I first came across Lucy Dyson’s work through the video for Gemma Ray’s lovely song ‘Rescue Me.’ I was hooked immediately. Genius. I was instantly taken with her Terry Gilliam-esque use of layered, ragged cut-out images. To me that was the anchor. A familiar place for my imagination to leap from. But very quickly you realize that the narrative is taking you somewhere that you didn’t expect. It feels like you’re on a roller coaster in some weird circus of the psychedelic burlesque. And yet, underneath all that strange and beautiful imagery there’s this sense that she is truly emotionally invested in the storytelling. To me, it’s like she can see within a song some hidden fourth dimension, a dimension that you didn’t even know existed until she pulls aside the curtain and invites you in.”
Here is the video:
I also made an animated teaser for the song leading up to the single release, which you can watch here:
Here are some recent (and upcoming) music releases I’ve made artwork for, all these releases also come out on vinyl, the best format for enjoying album artwork! I’m writing this from Melbourne Australia, I’m back for a cousin’s wedding and a very overdue visit to see all my friends and family, I’m having such a great time, but it will be nice to return to Berlin later in April with spring properly in swing.
First, back in November 2013 the excellent Series Alphonos label came out with Cremator’s Clear Air Turbulence. The art work I made for this release is a straight up paper collage. Cremator is London one-man synth geek Matt Thompson, (Zoltan, Guapo), and this record takes you on a sci-fi tune-fest ala John Carpenter meets Kraftwerk. Series Alphonos is an off-shoot of the Bronze Rat record label, which focuses on “left-of-centre musical meanderings, soundtracks, and strange treasures from hidden corners”. Another recent Series Alphonos release is the Krzysztof Komeda soundtrack to Roman Polanski’s – Dance of the Vampires (aka The Fearless Vampire Killers), available now for the first time ever on vinyl, excellent label!
Teeth and Tongue‘s latest album “Grids” was released last week. I have worked with Teeth & Tongue (aka Jess Cornelius) on some early music videos, but I think the album cover for Grids is my favourite collaboration with her so far. The cover image is an original paper collage, which will be included in a solo exhibition I have coming up at Das Gift in Berlin in late April. ‘Grids’ is Teeth & Tongues follow up to 2011′s Tambourine, it is such an excellent record and is out on Remote Control Records.
And finally, here is the super awesome 7″ picture disc I got to make for Gemma Ray! Death Disc is a Record Store Day 2014 exclusive, and features two teenage tragedies in song form, and the track Motorbike also includes a special appearance from Alan Vega from Suicide (!!) Above is the A-side art I made and below is the B-side. It was a bit of a dream job!
…..and here is a picture (courtesy of Gemma Ray’s facebook page!) of the disc box-fresh and ready for Record Store Day!
I have a few more album art jobs I’m working on, but these are the ones I can share for now. I’ll also post details for my upcoming Berlin exhibition shortly!
Untitled (New Year), 2013. Paper collage, 20.5 x 24 cm
Since I last posted I have made so many new pieces, this is one of them. It could be read as my vision for 2014 (which according to my mum suggests I might be planning on moving somewhere warmer, like Australia! Her hopes for 2014!). Maybe in the new year I will start posting more regularly, a new collage (or work in progress) each day (ha, I post here on average once every 2 months), or at least each week. I have a few album art commissions and a second music video for a kid’s song on the go (the first one I finished a couple of months ago, so it should be released sometime soon, along with the art I made for the album both songs feature on).
Happy new year, it sounds like a war zone out in Kreuzberg tonight, I will join in with my own pack of fireworks later!
Untitled (catpocalypse), 2013. Paper collage © Lucy Dyson 27.5 x 36 cm
A recent piece of work I made. It kinda reminds me of a 1980s record cover.
