Sebaldo takes us on a “felt trip” down the rabbit hole in psychedelic music video for Cairobi

Sebaldo takes us on a hallucinogenic voyage of delirium in his new animated music video for London-based five-piece Cairobi, crafted entirely out of brightly coloured felt tip pen.

The simple felt tip media, imprecise and expressive, acts as a gateway drug to Cairobi’s dreamlike music. Distortions and contortions abound.

“I enjoy the ‘felt trip’ style because I like the mad texture that the strokes create. And because it bleeds, you loose a lot of control, which when animating makes things grow and shrink over time,” explains Sebaldo.

A sea of grimacing trees, wobbling en masse in their befuddlement, are a particular highlight in the mesmeric middle section of the music video. “I created the trees like that because trees amaze me when I look at them and sometimes I can feel hypnotised by them…The Cairobi guys were really open to anything but they just said make it crazy, man,” says Sebaldo.

The song relates a romantic day out between the lead singer and a girl he took out in a Volkswagen Lupo. The video follows this narrative abstractly, evoking sensation rather than recounting events exactingly. “The song is about the two going through the day and I wanted to capture that feeling you get when you really feel connected with the experience you are having with that person and your environment,” he explains.

The video was an onerous labour of love, painstakingly crafted frame by frame, “I had to scan each bloody image in every time and actually I nearly went a bit mad doing it, which probably helped the video,” he says. Sebaldo is currently working on an animated follow up music video for Cairobi, which is sure to be another hallucinatory feast for the eyes.