Grizzly Bear - Knife

MAY 21 2007 · 12:00

Grizzly Bear - Knife (2007) Director: Isaiah Saxon & Sean Hellfritsch (Encyclopedia Pictura) Era: Mid-2000s Indie Art-Rock Video Renaissance (2006–2008) - Peak period of avant-garde, director-driven music video experimentation coinciding with the Brooklyn indie boom and Warp Records' U.S. expansion High curatorial value as a confirmed, fully documented artifact from a pivotal moment in indie music video history. Represents the intersection of Warp Records' U.S. art-rock expansion, the Brooklyn indie baroque movement, and the emergence of the director-collective model. The video's handcrafted surrealist aesthetic, Death Valley location work, and deliberately primitive animation make it a distinctive and well-preserved document of 2007 experimental visual culture. Its association with a song ranked in Pitchfork's top 500 tracks of the decade further anchors its archival importance. Context: Released in early 2007, 'Knife' arrived in the wake of Yellow House (September 2006), Grizzly Bear's critically lauded second album on Warp Records, a release the New York Times named among the best albums of 2006 and Pitchfork ranked No. 8 on their year-end list. The video reflects a broader cultural moment in which Brooklyn-based indie acts were pushing music video aesthetics toward handmade surrealism, rejecting slick pop production values in favor of lo-fi DIY craftsmanship. Encyclopedia Pictura's approach, blending practical desert location work with deliberately primitive creature animation, positioned the clip as an artifact of analog-revivalist filmmaking philosophy. The song itself would go on to be ranked No. 109 on Pitchfork's top 500 tracks of the 2000s, cementing its status as a touchstone of the decade's indie canon. Director notes: Filmed on location in Death Valley, California, with additional studio work completed in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The production involved building and animating physical models (a crazed machine, quicksand pool, living stones) in front of green screens, then compositing them against the Death Valley footage. Creature and prosthetics elements (including latex body pieces) were also fabricated for the shoot. The animation style was intentionally rendered to evoke the low-fidelity look of early sci-fi television programs. Produced by Mark De Pace for Warp Records. The video premiered exclusively on Stereogum on February 8, 2007.