A 2015 sonic collaboration between The Chemical Brothers and Beck called Wide Open now has trippy visuals to go with it, with a new music video featuring Sonoya Mizuno as a dancer who goes through a magical change.
The new video was directed by frequent Chemical Brothers collaborators Dom & Nic, who were inspired by “procedural structures.” To achieve the seamless transformation from the dancer’s physical structure to one with a see-through, 3D-printed aesthetic the production team made a full computer-generated model of Mizuno.
A four-on-the-floor dance track with unsettling synth undertones, the track takes on new life with the addition of the video art piece, which takes listeners to a concrete parking garage with a single, hollow human inside.
Showcasing a freeform dance piece which ultimately results in the dancer turning entirely see-through, the video is an enthralling piece of visual artwork, an organic-feeling musical complement with a technological edge that many modern music videos lack.
Outside of their longtime partnership with The Chemical Brothers, Dom & Nic have a history working with other musical collaborations, having directed the video for Trent Reznor’s collaboration with the recently-deceased David Bowie, I’m Afraid of Americans.
Now considered to be among the elder statesman of the modern electronic pop genre, The Chemical Brothers got their start in Manchester, England, in 1989. A duo project which has gone through many transformations over the intervening decades, the group has had six of their eight albums go number one in the U.K., as well as nabbing four Grammy Awards for their work.
The band frequently highlights guest vocalists in their work, with Beck featured as just the latest in a series of collaborators that includes Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, Bernard Sumner of New Order, and Tim Burgess of The Charlatans.
The Chemical Brother’s latest album, on which Wide Open first debuted, is called Born in the Echoes. It was the pair’s first release since 2010.
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