Charlotte’s Dylan Gilbert premieres music videos from new collaborative visual album
There’s no doubt COVID-19 upended artists’ and entertainers’ plans for 2020, but shuttered venues and stay-at-home orders also pushed some toward new creative avenues and approaches to their craft.
Charlotte-based musician Dylan Gilbert, for instance, thought he’d release his new album “I’ll Be the Lakebed” with a tour that incorporates the visual aspect of the project through performance art.
But when touring turned out to not be possible, he opted not to hold off, instead digging deeper into visuals and collaboration by recruiting other artists and filmmakers to create videos for all ten tracks. He’s slowly doled the premieres out over the last few months. The video for “Adrift” — which debuts on the Observer’s website on Friday — was directed by actor/musician Kadey Ballard (XOXO performance ensemble) and filmed by Matt Cosper (founder of XOXO and a Goodyear Arts member).
“The live portion was (going to be) a big part of it, with different set pieces and costumes,” explains Gilbert, who already staged his own rock opera with his band Hectorina a few years ago and has recorded as a solo artist since he was a teen (he’s now 32). “Instead of holding out hope for a tour, I decided I’ll just do an entire visual album. I’ll ask my friends in quarantine to do videos and put the videos together down the road.
“I can spend all of my Trump money on visual arts,” he says, half-jokingly.
“I’ll Be the Lakebed” is already available digitally and on CD via Gilbert’s Bandcamp page, and the full video release is set for October.
While his songwriting pre-dated the pandemic, “Lakebed” did start as a reaction to current events.
“A lot of the lyrics started out as a protest album,” Gilbert says. “About six months into the process, I thought, ‘You know, the last thing I want is to put out more negativity, more angry white dude music.’ It veered into a different direction with hymns, tone poems, and prayers.”
“Eventually that came to mean, for me, that I have this inner world — my spirituality, my peace of mind, the people I care for in my life, and my music. Then there’s the news and my phone going off all day and how modern society is so overwhelming to our psyche. That’s where most of the inspiration developed from.”
The song “Boneyard” sounds born of recent events, with its Blues Explosion-meets-Runs the Jewels collision of funk-soul-blues, methodically haunting electro hiccups and vocal manipulation. It opens with the line “The flag’s always at half-mast now.”
“That song is one of the big moments on this record,” he says. “I was traveling a lot in 2016 and 2017 and noticed it no matter where I went. There were more school shootings than ever, and all these violent acts were starting to drum up.”
It was also inspired by Charlotte’s first Black Lives Matter protest and the death of one of the protesters.
“Things like that were really striking to me. There’s so much tragedy going on in the world and so much of it is being hushed. I’m trying (not) to come at it (like) I’m on a soapbox. I’ve got to keep my own sanity.”
“I’ll Be the Lakebed” is Gilbert’s first electronic project, which features production work by Charlotte’s Justin Aswell. Musically he was inspired by staples like Kate Bush, Brian Eno and Talk Talk, as well as hip-hop and electronic artists.
“On Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde,’ I was struck by how these largely electronic songs could sound organic, and that was inspiring to me,” he says. “I had this infatuation with music that is more ambient, songs that really took their time. I was curious: ‘How much silence I can leave in a song? If I just drop into silence for two solid measures, can I make that work?’ Songs like ‘Scrolling’ and ‘New Prayer’ have these big giant pauses. I wanted to figure out how to make that not feel weird.”
The cinematic aspect certainly helps.
Gilbert will premiere another video from “I’ll Be the Lakebed” on Friday, Aug. 21 at Goodyear Arts, 301 Camp Road #200. While he will not perform live, they’ll have a video installation for the song “Untethered” (created with Dennissa Young). Masks are required.
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 11:13 AM.