It was only last week that Big Grams released an a very bizarre animated video for Born To Shine/Run For Your Life, the animation courtesy of Adult Swim, the network that brought you such twisted hits as Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Now, the collaborative project from Phantogram and Big Boi are back at it with the live action accompaniment to Drum Machine, off their incredible self-titled debut album, released last year.
The video, directed by Outkast video co-colloborater Bryan Barber, begins with an anime inspired opening sequence, before cutting to a scene with a bunch of rambling hobos and trolleys. A furry costumed wolf (‘Red Wolf’) emerges from a broken down car and proceeds to go cause havoc in what looks like downtown LA and Hollywood.
Frolicking among other street performers, the wolf attempts to grope women before ‘Dabs’ the squirrel appears to suck down some smoke from a vaporiser. Then some weird thing called ‘Purp’ proceeds to steal the car of a man entering a club. While Red Wolf is unsuccessful in gaining entry into a club, Purp has no such trouble.
The eureka moment comes when all the animals remove there masks and turn out to be Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel, Josh Carter, and Big Boi. Then the video again cuts to big, colourful cartoon letters saying ‘Next week on Big Grams’, showing a bunch of lazy and inept cops eating donuts and generally doing nothing. A sneaky little reference about Skrillex comes when the two cops start to beat up ‘Sonny Panda,’ referencing his real name, Sonny.
The video gives an interesting glimpse into the gritty streetlight of LA and its clubs, as well the maltreatment of misbehaving furry animals.
Image: vevo.com
Big Grams is the name of the collaborative duo comprised of Phantogram and Big Boi, and if you haven’t heard any of their self-titled 2015 debut yet, you are very much missing out. Blending Phantogram’s dark electro pop with Big Boi’s hip-hop legacy, the trio make some really good tunes, and now it seems that can be said for their music videos as well.
Like Scooby Doo on acid, the Big Grams crew get up to some crazy adventures in these clips, directed by Awesome Inc. The first track in the double video is the Run The Jewels featuring Born To Shine, so the gang are greeted with an animated, long coating wearing Killer Mike kicking down the door of the bar. It’s relatively harmless, a few barflies here and there, but before too long, the barflies show their true, monster like qualities (including the woman El-P was motorboating) and Big Grams are blasted into an alternate universe. From here, fittingly for Run For Your Life, Big Grams get lost in a horror house, complete with eye balls, a crocodile woman and a weird leprechaun family. Standard really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hruW7-mYWhY
This is the first we have heard from Big Grams since early November last year, when they released the video for lead single, Fell In The Sun, as well as their incredible performance on Jimmy Kimmel. There isn’t any word on any future releases from the supergroup, but that isn’t stopping us from hoping there is another album on the way!
Image: Spin
2015 has produced a multitude of tasty collaborations – Disclosure have certainly had their fill – but one of the more surprising has come in the form of Big Grams, which is the joint project of Atlanta rapper and OutKast founder Big Boi and electro-pop duo Phantogram. Phantogram contributed to Big Boi’s 2012 solo debut, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumours, but it wasn’t until the end of last year that their friendship evolved into full-blown collaborative work.
https://instagram.com/p/62yXMYL2mq/
Big Grams released a self-titled EP – which features cameos from Run the Jewels and Skrillex – in late September. They’ve also been receiving substantial praise for lead single Fell in the Sun, which has just been accompanied by the group’s first music video. The video, premiered (bizarrely) at WeTransfer, is a psychedelic mish-mash of bright, kaleidoscopic patterns and clips of the trio performing, apparently intended to replicate the visual sensation of staring into the sun. Watch the video right here.
Performance-wise, Big Grams have wasted little time in establishing themselves as a bona-fide act, with appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! ensuring widespread exposure, and slots at the likes of Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival lined up for the near future.
Big Grams, the epic collaboration between Outkast alumni Big Boi and Phantogram, came together to offer up an electric performance of their hybrid R&B/electro-pop music for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
The outfit performed tracks Goldmine Junkie and Drum Machine, with Big Boi and Sarah Barthel (who was sporting avian-inspired feather dress) out front while Josh Carter held it down in the back with the Maschine pad. The songs were performed alongside the Brooklyn Express Drum Line.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9nBUD4VSX0&w=560&h=315]
The songs are off the collaborative collective’s debut album Big Grams, a seven-track EP that originally came about after Phantogram worked with Big Boy on 2012 album Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumours.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLWarOqQyX8&w=560&h=315]
Broadcasting from the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House this week instead of its native Los Angeles, Big Grams performance was part of a string of high profile appearances. Even Marty McFly and Doc Brown managed to time-travel into the studio.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0VGRlEJewA&w=560&h=315]
Jay Z also managed to swing by the show earlier in the week, dishing on everything from his favourite New York pizzeria, to his wife Beyonce’s weird pizza eating habits and his upbringing in Brooklyn.
“She’s from Houston, first of all,” Jay Z said. “They don’t have pizza there.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MudvLw8hLoo&w=560&h=315]
Even Ryan Adams made an appearance, performing a cover of Taylor Swift’s Welcome to New York from his version of 1989.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69HxXfjtH8c&w=560&h=315]
After making their debut live last month as the collaboration, Big Boi and Phantogram have finally released their first single under the moniker Big Grams. The trio revealed the song Fell in the Sun as the lead single form their forthcoming EP under the same name Big Grams.
The Outkast alumni joins the indie-pop duo for a song that is cinematic and spacious in scope, underplayed with some seriously slicks synth and rap hooks, featuring a shout out to Atlanta and New York, where Big Boi and Phantogram come from respectively, from the latter’s Sarah Barthel.
Big Boi, who was impressed by Phantogram’s Mouthful of Diamonds, reached out to the two after he shazaamed the song off an ad it was featured in. They collaborated together on three songs from Big Boi’s Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumours solo album, and it was only natural that their own EP, Big Grams, followed it.
The track debuted on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show and can be heard below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0qq_WtH7U&w=560&h=315]
Big Grams Tracklist:
- Run for Your Life
- Lights On
- Fell In The Sun
- Put It On Her
- Goldmine Junkie
- Born To Shine [ft. Run the Jewels]
- Drum Machine [ft. Skrillex]
The album is out on September 25th and you can pre-order it on iTunes here.