Pitchfork

If you're into music and you spend too much time on YouTube, it's easy to develop a cynical edge, what with all the drunk bassists, rants about race, and uncountable amount of general WTF-ness. It gets to be a drag. But then you see something like this, and suddenly the idea of a video clearinghouse starts to seem worthwhile. According to the information posted in the "About This Video" section, this piece is by Jovana Sarver, a student at the Capital Area School for the Arts, an arts magnet high school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Using cloth and stop-motion animation, Sarver has perfectly illustrated the dream world that sits at the heart of one of Joanna Newsom's greatest songs. It looks like a ton of painstaking work, but it pays off beautifully, with a tone and aesthetic that seem just right. I want to climb into this thing; I trust the filmmaker got an A+ for this project.

 

[from The Milk-Eyed Mender; out now on Drag City]