OK Go are back with a new single called “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill,” which, per tradition, is paired with another clever music video from the always inventive band.
The visual, co-directed by OK Go's Damian Kulash and filmmaker Chris Buongiorno, used 64 phones to create a mosaic of 64 different videos that, when combined, seamlessly create one giant image.
"Trying to balance anxiety (which is just realism) and hope (which is just necessary) can often feel like living in a split screen, which is where the inspiration for the video came from. It's the most human, DIY thing we could think of 's split-screen version," Kulash said in a statement.
"Instead of using digital wizardry to glue multiple videos together, we took a video for each of dozens of phones and placed them side by side as a screen mosaic. All these separate pieces sometimes worked in harmony, sometimes Discordant, forming a single image – our many contradictory parts struggling to cohere into a whole.”
According to the band, the filming of the "A Stone Only Rolls Downhill" video lasted eight days and took more than a thousand shots. The final video combines more than two hours and twenty minutes of single-shot footage into one frame. The band also shared a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the video:
As for the song itself – the first single from OK Go’s upcoming album and possible adjacentdue to be released later this year - Kulash said in a statement, "This is a difficult time to stay optimistic. It takes some faith to get through life, as Martin Luther King famously said:" The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. "But looking at the world unfolding in front of me, especially in front of my children, it's hard to find that faith. What do we tell them? That's what this song is about: trying to be honest while keeping your head high."
OK Go fans will have the opportunity to see the band in real life on their 14-date tour starting in April this year.
April 24 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom
April 25 – Chicago, IL – Riviera Theater
April 26 – Detroit, MI – Majestic Theater
April 27 – Cleveland, Ohio – The Agora
May 14 – San Diego, CA – The Sound
May 16 – Los Angeles, CA – Leader
May 18 – San Francisco, CA – Fillmore
May 28 – Brooklyn, New York – Brooklyn Steel Company
May 30 – Boston, MA – Royale
May 31 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
June 1 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
June 19 – Portland, OR – McMenamins Crystal Ballroom
June 20 – Seattle, WA – Neptune Theater
June 21 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom