So this is the first in a series of musical writing I'll be doing, where I'll match points in a song to scenes in a passage I'll write. the time in parentheses corresponds to the elapsed time in the song, so (2:52) would mean that this scene syncs up with two minutes and fifty two second into the track. This first one is from my favorite artist, Gramatik, and is a very electronic/funky guitar fusion track. So, click the link and listen along as you try to imagine the setting...
(0:00) We open on a clear blue sky, a few puffy white clouds floating above, as the camera swings down and pans across a flat dry cactus desert, narrowing on a dust cloud trailing behind what looks like a stage coach.
(0:40) We focus on the back of the stagecoach, which seems larger than normal, the driver sitting up front and cracking his whip in time, wrapped up in all sorts of patchy shabby clothing and a worn bandana. As we follow the stage coach, we begin spot the high wooden timbers of a fort drawing closer. The stage slows down, and pulls up to the heavy gate as the music picks up.
(1:02) The gates fly open and admit the slowly rolling stagecoach into a sprawling old western town, complete with saloon and sheriff and barrels and tumbleweeds. The people are actually shabby, fifties style clunky robots, performing menial tasks and actions along the road as the coach rumbles past.
(1:15) The camera enters the saloon, where similarly dressed cowboy robots lift mugs of oil in time to the counter syncopation of the track (one, two, one, two). Others pick up and drop coins on tables, show hands of poker, play the piano, raise their hats at robotic barmaids.
(1:30) We snap cut outside to another robotic cowboy playing a boxy guitar stiffly and methodically, like an animatronic doll from an old wild west showcase (think Wild Bill's Revue, etc.) The camera pans out as he plays his riff, but the circuitry under his outfit begins to pulse and glow to the beat, his edges looking less ragged and boxy, the guitar slowly beginning to gain fluidity.
(1:54) The barrels lining the edges out the road begin to shake, their lids starting to rise and pop back down, flashing lights visible for the few seconds that they are up. The townsrobots begin to move more smoothly, and the dust of the roads blows away in small patches to reveal dull metal underneath. The entire town seems to be starting to move to the beat, the buildings twitching in time along with the rest of the inhabitants.
(2:19) The robot with the guitar stands up on his bench, which unfolds into a chrome metal table, his guitar growing fluid metal appendages, his very form beginning to streamline as he plays. No boxy approximations of digits, his fingers are mimicing the grace and dexterity of human fingers, like an android. The change sweeps up his arms as his circuits reconfigure, and the barrels surrounding him start to unfold as their hidden occupants raise their heads. A plethora of futuristic looking robots, with neon purple and teal accents unfold from the barrels, a sweeping change from the dust of the streets to gleaming metal and circuitry begins to spread across the town. The old wooden building facades begin to fall off, showing the bleeping and blinking lights underneath them, the cool metal jarring with the old style architecture as the technological takeover spreads.
(2:50) The change continues, steady and fluidly, as we pan to the interiors of buildings, growing more modern, advancing steadily through the coming decades of smooth chrome and sleek shine, the outfits changing on all the patrons as well as they begin to methodically dismantle the old from the new, now in control of their own setting. The sheriff stands up and unlocks the now holographic bars of the jail cell and releases the prisoners, who looks like robotic punks. They all proceed to dismantle the musty dusty office into something shiny and bright, then proceed outside with the rest of the citizens.
(3:34) We move back again to the first robot, continuing to play; he steps down from the stage and his guitar plays itself as he joins the throng in ripping up the dust and dirt of the road, revealing complex circuitry and patterns, fractal shapes bleeding through the dust not yet cleaned up, light pulsing from the exposed underlying machinery as the entire town shines with energy. The work continues as the wooden timbers of the border begin to stretch up higher and cover the town.
(4:00) The walls rise higher and higher, the entirety of the townspeople now almost human looking, the futuristic metallic androids of Dick and Gibson. They continue their construction as the synchronicity slows down and each develops their own pattern, the new utopia slowly covered with a shiny weaving metal dome made of fibrous metal as it begins to sink into the ground. Finally, the dust blows over where the town used to be, tumbleweeds and dust blowing everywhere as the changed androids retreat below the ground. The camera slow pans to one leftover barrel, tipped over on its side, as a small robotic scorpion crawls out of it and heads into the desert...
(Header Image sourced from Iron West, by Doug TenNapel)
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