Jaimeo Brown Transcendence: Music Video Blends Matisse, Kandinsky, and Prison Work Songs

Jaimeo Brown, drummer and producer, and guitarist Chris Sholar (Grammy winner for work with Kanye West and Jay Z) have released a new album, "Work Songs," which reimagines archival recordings collected by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the 1950s from fields, prisons, and chapels across the US. The track "Be so Glad," featuring prisoners from Parchman Farm Prison in Mississippi building a railroad, has been turned into a music video directed by Fons Schiedon. The video references cinema history, animation, advertising, and art, including Disney's "Skeleton Dance," "The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson, experimental films by Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, Michel Gondry's work, Matisse's "Icarus," and Kandinsky's abstract compositions. The video uses a circular narrative structure mirroring the prisoners' vocal ostinato, creating a synesthetic mantra. VICE named "Work Songs" one of the most exciting, experimental, and important albums of the year.