Watch a Shot-by-Shot Remake of Kubrick’s The Shining, a 48-Minute Music Video Accompanying the New Album by Aesop Rock

In this increas­ing­ly atom­ized world of music, how does one get a new record release noticed above the hum of the inter­net? If you’re Bey­on­cé, you just drop the whole thing unan­nounced and watch the media play catch up. If you’re not Bey­on­cé you might con­sid­er rap­per Aesop Rock’s tac­tic.

This week, the word­smithi­est of hip hop artists and ani­ma­tor Rob Shaw released a shot-by-shot remake of Stan­ley Kubrick’s The Shin­ing, cre­at­ed with minia­tures and made with what looks like spare change as a bud­get. All of which plays as back­ground video to a full stream of The Impos­si­ble Kid, Aesop Rock’s sev­enth album and his first in four years.

Rob Shaw cre­at­ed the hip­ster rats skits for Port­landia as well as videos for They Might Be Giants and pre­vi­ous Aesop Rock tracks, but this Shin­ing remake is some­thing else. First you notice the glee­ful cheap­ness of the pro­duc­tion, but then as Aesop Rock’s rap lyrics flow over the visu­als, mem­o­ry starts to fill in the gaps of the images. Shaw’s hand­i­work is lit­er­al­ly in the video: we can see his hand in the bath­tub scene, or his body’s shad­ow as he moves the wood­en Jack Tor­rance down the Overlook’s halls. And the tiny cam­era repli­cates the film’s Steadicam shots well, cre­at­ing a work that is like a delir­i­um of the actu­al movie.

Now, does this have any­thing to do with The Impos­si­ble Kid, real­ly? Well, the rap­per did go to live in a Port­land barn after divorce and the death of a friend, and instead of writ­ing “All Work and No Play…” over and over wrote this album, and nobody got hurt. Either way, by the time you’ve fin­ished watch­ing you’ll have heard the album, and that’s just one way to play the new music game.

via Noisey

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load & Play The Shin­ing Board Game

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Anno­tat­ed Copy of Stephen King’s The Shin­ing

Stan­ley Kubrick’s The Shin­ing Reimag­ined as Wes Ander­son and David Lynch Movies

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.