What’s the best way to augment a song with notable videogame-theme influences? With a video which depicts the artist as a bad ass assassin saving the day. That’s what Jean Grae and Quelle Chris did for their “Zero” track, another single from their upcoming Everything’s Fine joint LP. The track flips a blippy keyboard riff into the core of a thumping, rock-influenced banger. The urgent soundscape is perhaps a perfect backdrop for the Zero game, which Quelle designed and configured himself.
The narrative shows Lt. Quelle Chris (of the Detroit Revolt Sector) deploying Grae on the hunt for Mad Red, an evil CEO with a hoard of goons and goblins that Grae demolishes through video game stages that harken back to the classic era of arcade and console gaming.
“I wanted watchers to have a ‘phantom joystick’ moment,” Quelle said over e-mail. “I watched hours and hours and hours of game playthroughs and speedruns to get the authenticity and pace of the video just right. Jean has always had her assassin story running through all of her albums so I decided to go with that as a base and squeeze in as many references to my favorite type of games as I could…I plan on having at least three fully playable levels done by the end of 2018.”
Until then, Everything’s Fine will be available on March 30th. You can pre-order via Bandcamp here.
