It’s been just over a year since Slowriter unveiled King of the Void, the final album in a four-part series of recordings that saw band mastermind Bryan Taylor grow from an experimental purveyor of breezy, billowing pop to a more audacious and exploratory songwriter tackling themes of loneliness and loss over jittery beats and sculpted soundscapes. Since that time, Slowriter has done a small bit of touring, but mostly Taylor has been shuttered in his lab working on the next phase in his development.

With “Crazy,” the first single and video from a new series called Summer Camp, we get our first taste of his latest evolution. The song samples Pharrell’s monster hit “Happy,” and while it’s very much in keeping with the deconstructed pop Taylor’s become known for, the Latin-flavored guitars and off-kilter rhythms prove he’s capable of shifting his sound into unexpected territory. It’s evocative, accessible, and just idiosyncratic enough to keep you locked out of your comfort zone. In the past it’s been easy to simply glide into Slowriter’s music; here there’s just enough tension and anxiety to keep you from surrendering to the groove.

But while the song is captivating, the video, created by Taylor himself, is even more so. For much of the early part of the clip, we see only Taylor’s face framed in black, and every few seconds it morphs and mutates. First it becomes a pineapple, then Gary Busey, then a pepperoni pizza. Funny, weird stuff, right? But then comes the parade of celebrities, living and dead — Charlie Sheen, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Swayze, Christopher Walken. The effect is dramatic and unsettling, casting a stormy cloud of uneasy black humor that ramps up the feeling of nervous agitation.

In an emailed statement, Taylor revealed to us something about the origins and thought process behind his latest work:

“With the video, I wanted to use this facial morphing technique that I learned recently. I made a list of celebrities or characters that could be considered crazy. Throughout the video my face freezes and morphs into each crazy person, then back to normal. Towards the end of the video, I walk away from the green screen and the camera follows me out of my house into the woods. I thought this worked with the concept and I didn’t want the morphing to get boring after a few minutes.”

I’m not exactly sure at what point something like this would become boring because, for me, it was fascinating to watch. The transformations are fairly seamless and there’s a certain level of anticipation that builds with each metamorphosis. The longer I watched, the more I found myself trapped in suspense, waiting on the next change. The end result is a work both ominous and beguiling, and one of more remarkable local videos I’ve seen in some time.

More Info
Web: slowriter.org
Bandcamp: slowriter.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @slowriter
SoundCloud: @slowriter
Twitter: @slowriterband