The Chicago duo Protovulcan has a brand new video for their track “What’s Your Flavour?“, off the band’s 2015 LP Stakes Is Low. Directed by Andy Ramsey, the video was filmed over two days at The Chicago Electric Piano Co.–a resource for the servicing of Rhodes, Wurlitzers, Hohner Clavinets, as well as other vintage keyboards and synthesizers. This was the perfect location for the shoot considering Will MacLean‘s dedication to these classic instruments. Last year when we interviewed MacLean he professed his love for the Wurlitzer, explaining:
“One of the coolest things about the Wurly – it can make feedback, like a guitar. I was listening to Th’ Faith Healers and Quickspace – and thought, “Wow, Tom Cullinan plays insanely, pulverizingly loud guitar – always on the verge of feedback”. When he plays rhythm – it squeals between each and every strum, and the tension is intense. It made me wanna play guitar. But instead, jamming with Deric one day long ago, I figured out that if you crank up the Wurlitzer enough, you get feedback. So I started trying to figure out how to play this keyboard instrument the way Quickspace plays guitars”.
Mission accomplished, as tracks like “What’s Your Flavour?” rip and bristle with dizzying textures of the Wurly and Moog. Using The Chicago Electric Piano Co. as the background, director Andy Ramsey and crew opt for a stylized performance video to capture the duo’s frenetic activity. Highly energized shots of drummer Deric Criss (Aleks and the Drummer, Walking Bicycles, Charlie Deets) and MacLean on keys and vocoder accomplish this with rhythmic editing, as well as a host of eye-catching effects, including, what the band calls, a “trippy, psychedelic 60’s lightboard that flashes the actual notes as they are actually played”.
