[ he/him ]
city: ChicagoSen Morimoto is releasing his third album Diagnosis, this Friday and today he’s dropped the final single, “Pressure On The Pulse,” a devastatingly intimate, quiet song that then explodes into an exuberant, animated whirlwind of sax and drums. The song arrives with a video starring Chicago comedy, drag and music icon Alex Grelle, concluding an over-the-top comedic trilogy that explores the albums narrative arc.
The trilogy, directed by Morimoto and New Trash film crew, take a sardonic jab at the music industry and the pitfalls of capitalism in a looped timeline farce that follows a convenience store clerk who sells his soul for stardom (“Diagnosis”). Initially intending to use his art to “help people and stuff”, Sen ends up falling prey to the vampiric nature of the music industry, ultimately falling to his death from a steal beam above the Chicago skyline while filming a music video (“If The Answer Isn’t Love”). The final installment of the trilogy “Pressure On The Pulse” finds an evil record label executive (Alex Grelle) celebrating the profits of Sen’s posthumous album streams in an unhinged dance sequence, even as Morimoto resurrects from the dead. With visual references to films like Phantom Of The Paradise, Clerks, and The Crow, the visual universe of Diagnosis calls back to MTV era Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry music videos, using humor to balance and deliver the album’s earnest message.
While the video trilogy offers a look into the artist’s diagnosis of the music industry around him, it is merely one current in the larger universe of big-idea topics subject to Morimoto’s powerful interrogation (and saxophone) on his outward-looking 3rd LP Diagnosis due out this Friday.
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