Client: Brody is an Ohio-based artist, producer, audio engineer and member of collective Garden Avenue.I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Brody since our Freshman year at Capital University, and have worked with him previously on cover art and video direction for several songs in his catalog.
Goal: To create, oversee, and manage every visual aspect of the album “Somewhere to Hide” . We will produce 4 music videos, the main album art, singles art, Spotify Canvases, promotional teasers and related promotional collateral for this project. Most of this collateral would center around photographs taken during music video shoots for four songs on the album.
Experience/Process: Unlike previous releases, Brody didn’t have too many concrete ideas on what he wanted the visuals to look like. Through some mood boarding and conversations on themes, we worked to refine this vision and how it ties to each of the singles. One of our common goals and reference points came from a lot of 1990s Japanese fashion brands and designers such as Jun Takashi’s work with Undercover, Number Nine, and more. Many of these brands utilize references to 80s and 90s underground and indie music, so I wanted to preserve this legacy through paying visual homage to these bands.
A lot of our collaborative process for this project happened on a private discord server for the two of us, which allowed us to organize our thoughts into designated channels for each song and beyond. After listening to the album, we worked to decide which songs we were going to shoot videos for, and figured out the sequence of pre-album singles. Based on the first few listen throughs, I knew I wanted to make videos for “House of Dust”, “Ash and Snow”, “Target”, and
“Somewhere to Hide.” From here, I worked to pitch a few treatments to Brody, and gathered some common inspiration points to guide our energy on this project.
One of my favorite lyrics from the whole project happens on “Ash and Snow” where Brodymentions “swimming in the quarry” as a nostalgic memory to years gone by. Instantly called back to the iconic cover of indie rock band Slint’s landmark 1991 album “Spiderland”, and used this as a constant point of inspiration on the project. The main album cover photo was shot in Fairborn, OH at a former limestone quarry. We revisited the motif of the quarry by shooting the video of “Ash and Snow” at a nature preserve located right next to a large, operational limestone quarry on Lake Erie west of Sandusky, OH.
For “Target”, I wanted to showcase a frantic, first person shooter type energy that is visually inspired by boldly themed games like Time Crisis. For this, I went to the local army surplus store to purchase Brody some tactical gear and an airsoft rifle to use in this visual. I additionally designed my own fake HUD setup in After Effects, which includes audio reactive animations and a small scope of the lyrics hidden in the corner of the display.
On “House of Dust”, I reached out to David K. Ross, a multimedia artist who works in sculpture and projections to let us shoot him woodworking in his shop while performances of Brody played on a custom-built rear projection screen.
Outcome: The album and videos were released in Summer 2021, alongside a line of merch that featured some screenshots from some of the videos.
Cover art for the 4 singles:
Screenshots from the music videos:
