Altered Zones

Jamie Harley's video for "Dead Gulf" by ANR is a slight stylistic departure for both participants. It's a rare ambient piece from a band better known for dance-pop, while Harley built the three minute video out of a 50 second clip from Morphologic-- a multimedia biology project that Animal Collective's Geologist worked on. The original footage is a sped up recording of Corynactis viridis, a relatively common sea polyp along parts of the European coast (but of course you knew that), capturing plankton with its stubby tentacles. Accompanied by Morphologic's own ambiguous drone, Harley slows the video to make the Corynactis' feasting parallel the song. ANR's guitar begins just as it extends its tentacles, then its entire body, to consume the food. As "Dead Gulf" climaxes, the polyp's tentacles are hidden within its body, revealed again only as the song recedes and the polyp returns to a resting state. --Dwight Pavlovic, Get Off The Coast

MP3: ANR: "Dead Gulf"

"Dead Gulf" originally appeared on ANR's Big Problem 7"; though the 7" is now sold out, the track is still available as a bonus b-side with the iTunes version of the band's most recent LP, Stay Kids. You can watch Morphologic's original Corynactic viridis video and read more about the species here.