2025 catalogue, experimental film
Tulipomania: I've Been Told
Philadelphia-based art-rock duo Tulipomania are back with 'I've Been Told - Absolution', the first offering from their sixth album 'Absolution', inspired by an invitation from acclaimed author Jeff VanderMeer to contribute music as part of the publication of his latest novel 'Absolution', the surprise fourth volume in his award-winning 'Southern Reach' series. With a pressingly mournful urgency, this single's soundscape resonates with the complex energies enveloping VanderMeer’s novel, the author having invited the duo to create music inspired by 'Absolution' while still a work in progress. Hearing that VanderMeer took inspiration for the 'Absolution' novel from their 'Dreaming of Sleep' album, Tulipomania enthusiastically accepted the challenge. Jeff VanderMeer fondly describes the animated video for 'I've Been Told - Absolution': "The dreamlike immersion in imagery from the novel creates a hypnotic and perfect effect for both a beautiful dirge and surge of a song and the atmosphere for Absolution. Gorgeous and evocative". Shot frame by frame, utilizing multiple processes, including thermal printing, to create layered textures, the video features stop-motion animated objects (some frames vibrantly hand-tinted) and glimpses of the duo singing the lyrics. This exploration of various states of disintegration, painstakingly assembling thousands of individual images, evokes Absolution’s themes of dissolution and disorientation.