Science fiction and Japanese erotic culture converge in this new art/music video from electro music duo C’mon Tigre, featuring the vocal talents of Mick Jenkins, an American hip-hop recording artist who has collaborated with BADBADNOTGOOD and Wu-Tang Clan, among others.
Underground Lovers is a moving watercolor of clandestine shapes that conjure up a couple’s gluttonous night of food, narcotics and sex in neon-lit Tokyo. The remarkable dynamic work was created by Italian animation artist Gianluigi Toccafondo, who came to international prominence after working on the illustrated opening sequence of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood.
The film is a translucent cascade of sensual colors and tangled limbs that Toccafondo has assembled into a hand-made, stop-motion film without using keyframing, filters, or post-production. The result is a highly evocative exploration of love and obsession displayed in 2300 hand-painted scenes.
C’mon Tigre’s 2019 album, Racine, from which this track is taken, is at the heart of a larger art project as the musical act commissioned artists Harri Peccinotti, Boogie, Mode2, Maurizio Anzeri, Danijel Žeželj, Sic Est, Shigekiyuriko Yamane, Stefano Ricci, Ericailcane as well as Gianluigi Toccafondo to create original work for the album. The LP contains an 84-page booklet with the creations of each artist’s response to a track.