Watch Oneohtrix Point Never and The Weeknd’s wild video for “No Nightmares”
From OPN’s latest album Magic Oneohtrix Point Never.
"No Nightmares" was a highlight from Dan Lopatin a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never's recent project Magic Oneohtrix Point Never thanks in no small part to a heavenly feature from The Weeknd, who also executive produced the album. I'm not entirely surprised that the song — which sports vocals from one of the biggest pop stars in the world — now has its own music video, but I am genuinely shocked at how fantastic Nate Boyce's animation is, even stacked up against OPN's reliably great music video output. In the context of short blog blurbs, it's indescribable — there's an animatronic bear, an evil disembodied Weeknd head, etc etc. It's already in my top five favorite music videos of the year, which includes another Oneohtrix music video. Just watch.
Below, read a statement on the clip from director Nate Boyce:
"No Nightmares" was a highlight from Dan Lopatin a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never's recent project Magic Oneohtrix Point Never thanks in no small part to a heavenly feature from The Weeknd, who also executive produced the album. I'm not entirely surprised that the song — which sports vocals from one of the biggest pop stars in the world — now has its own music video, but I am genuinely shocked at how fantastic Nate Boyce's animation is, even stacked up against OPN's reliably great music video outputs. In the context of short blog blurbs, it's indescribable — there's an animatronic bear, an evil disembodied Weeknd head, etc etc.
"Dan initially sent me an excerpt of 'Fear of the Inexplicable' by Rilke as a prompt to start working on our idea of a debased animation. Abel and Dan traverse psychoanalytically charged scenarios and spaces that evoke a lurid mix of art and architectural references. Eventually I started to associate the implications of the Rilke poem to the biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, an anxiety inducing story I hated as a kid that became a subtext for the latter half of the piece. Despite the fact that Abraham is thwarted by divine intervention, I was terrified by his incomprehensible zealotry and willingness to sacrifice his own child, who I identified with. This story ensured my eventual atheism, but also my ongoing fascination with how these archaic stories, symbols, and motifs have continued relevance even now, and in many ways still structure our experience. So, as it happens in the animation, this process of individuation through archetypal projection starts with heroic ideations that devolve into anxiety and fear, culminating in a carnivalesque mockery of the faith required to confront these fears."