From Bruxelles to Vilnius. from Vlek Data on Vimeo.
If you’re living in a place that makes you feel hot outside, this video – filmed in Belgium and bitter, wintry Vilnius Lithuania – will cool you down. And if you feel cold inside, this music just might warm you up.
It’s the fitting companion to the release by label/collective Vlek of their app Beatsurfing. That app eschews rigid grids for sloppy, overlaid geometries, perfectly-aligned squares for rough-hewn rhythms that stutter and drag.
The geometry on the screen, in other words, is connected to the music. Describing his musical imagination, his way of playing – the idea behind the music, not the tool – Squeaky Lobster explains:
What I like about it is that it gives a warmer aspect to electronic music. If you’re working on a grid, filling in all the little squares on your sequencer, it gets a bit cold. You’ll get a track laid down like that too, but after having worked a bit like that, with those little squares, a got a bit sick of it.
Call it broken beat or what you will; here, it’s about a feeling, not a genre.
Filmed in calm, cool, unhurried fashion by French director Emile Sacré, “From Bruxelles to Vilnius” traces one Squeaky Lobster (that’s Mr. Lobster to you) along with Vlek labelmate Cupp Cave as they head into the frozen bits of Europe, thawing them out with their music. There are lovely commentaries on music, balancing different projects and trying to stay afloat, and of course plenty of requisite gauzy, washed-out-beautiful shots of trams rolling down streets and dancers crowding into clubs. And taps of pads and knob turns, too, natch.
Mmm, the rockstar life.
Ryanair. Like a boss.