WATCH: ALIEN FLOWER SUTRA Video Premiere

In 2016, electro-acoustic composer Rob Mazurek—long familiar from his work in the Chicago and Sao Paolo Underground and Exploding Star Orchestra—teamed with guitarist and singer Emmett Kelly to release Alien Flower Sutra. It remains one of our favorites of the decade, full of sleepy but surreal songs about love among robots in a doomed future. The compositions rage and recede, Kelly’s voice flickering like a slight flame in the mist. They’re performing at Big Ears 2019 with the help of video artist Kim Alpert, who will manipulate film live as they play. Today, we’re thrilled to premiere the first half of that video created by Rob Shaw and Damon Locks—a series of five animations sequenced to the album’s first side. Like the song and story, these shots suggest something familiar and warm but hover in some sort of dangerous, unknowable atmosphere. Watch it, and see these songs at Big Ears 2019.