New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Capitol Records) - The Decemberists' epic song cycle The Hazards Of Love takes on new life today December 1st with the release of Here Come The Waves: The Hazards Of Love Visualized, a full-length video album available exclusively through iTunes, the first of a kind for the digital retailer. Here Come The Waves, which was debuted live in Los Angeles in October to rave reviews, is a collaboration with four filmmakers-Peter Sluszka, Julia Pott, Guilherme Marcondes, and
Santa Maria-each of whom created original animation to accompany a section of the album. The films were curated by Flux, and produced by Hornet. Check out the new official trailer HERE.
The Los Angeles Times described Here Come The Waves as "a tumbling series of visuals with four distinct aesthetic styles. Peter Sluszka's ultra-slow motion capture of exploding mushrooms and elegantly disseminating seed pods... Julia Pott's line art of wolves and foxes hovering in geometric constellations... Guilherme Marcondes' renderings of skeletons caught among leafless branches and verdant human arms that unfurl like ferns... Santa Maria provides context...with cosmic, computer-generated vistas, cartoons of splintering bones."
Billboard declared the piece 'a stunning new 'visualizer' of four seamlessly-sequenced psychedelic videos inspired by the album's different acts,' adding that 'the visuals function as impressionistic landscapes and atmospheres evocative of the unfolding drama like a richly imagined liquid lightshow.'
Variety wrote that 'Here Come the Waves is the kind of project that could easily collapse under the weight of its pretensions. But it succeeded, brilliantly.'
The OC Register raved "Truly, this show, a spectacle that any self-respecting music snob would drool over, set a magnificent precedent for the band's future career, in the process elevating the Decemberists to the status of rock n' roll visionaries - not to mention top-tier crowd-pleasers... The 'psychedelic animation' transitioned flawlessly back and forth from smooth computer animation to cartoonish scenes... the swirling juxtaposition of foreboding and lighthearted images portrayed the album's binary conflict between good and evil perfectly."
The Hazards Of Love became one of the most discussed album's of the year when EMI's Capitol Records released it in March, and went on to become a thrilling live spectacle as the band performed the album in it's entirety throughout the summer in front of sold-out audiences across the country from their hometown of Portland, Oregon, to New York's Radio City Music Hall, as well as major festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.
HERE COME THE WAVES: THE HAZARDS OF LOVE VISUALIZED:
DIRECTOR: PETER SLUSZKA
1. Prelude
2. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
3. A Bower Scene
4. Wont Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
DIRECTOR: JULIA POTT
1. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
2. The Queen's Approach
3. Isn't it a Lovely Night?
4. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
5. An Interlude
DIRECTOR: GUILHERME MARCONDES
1. The Rake's Song
2. The Abduction of Margaret
3. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing
4. Annan Water
DIRECTOR: SANTA MARIA
1. Margaret in Captivity
2. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
3. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
4. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)
