Exclusive Video Premiere: ‘Run With You,’ Baby Alpaca

 

 

Singer/songwriter Chris Kittrell and his band Baby Alpaca have a knack for making what they’ve termed “psychedelic dream-folk”—an emulsion of ’80s pop and modern folk trimmed in electronic abstraction. Anyone who’s heard the bands’s music can attest to their sound-layering abilities, and with the release of Baby Alpaca’s new video, it seems they’ve been able to translate this skill into the visual realm, too—whimsical emotionalism and all.

“Run With You,” Baby Alpaca’s latest single, is classic in its portrayal of romantic yearning. Kittrell groans through the vocals like a young Morrissey, as waves of sound convulse in the background. “I wrote [the song] last summer while I was on the road,” Kittrell says. “I lost some important people in my life. And set for the highway to clear my head.”

The video, which Kittrell shot with the help of Yael Greenberg at artist Donald Baechler’s house in upstate New York, consists of four separate, layered scenes. In one scene, Kittrell sings straight-faced into the camera; in another he dances. Painter Kevin Baker takes care of the final two “layers,” flicking paint onto canvas to give the video a Pollock-influenced vibrance. The layers dissolve and reappear as the song progresses until, finally, Kittrell’s image is entirely washed out by streams of red and yellow paint. “Run With You” is more than a strong statement by a Brooklyn band on the verge of finding themselves as artists—it’s a work of art.

FOR MORE ABOUT BABY ALPACA AND TO DOWNLOAD THEIR NEW EP, VISIT BABYALPA.CA.