Loma - Pink Sky

JUL 01 2024 · 12:00

Loma - Pink Sky (2024) Director: Sabrina Nichols Era: Post-Pandemic Indie Art-Animation Era (2024) - Intimate, handmade animated video production emerging from geographically dispersed band reunion; Sub Pop indie ecosystem; watercolor aesthetics reflecting Dorset ruralism and lo-fi recording ethos High curatorial value as a rare example of a music video built entirely from one band member's fine-art source material (Emily Cross's watercolors), animated by an independent director with a distinctive hand-drawn aesthetic. Documents an important 2024 moment in Sub Pop's visual identity and the broader revival of artisanal animated music video production as an alternative to live-action or CGI formats. The quantitative profile, zero saturation, extreme warmth, fast cut-rate driven by still-frame cycling, creates a distinctive fingerprint highly useful for archive classification of animated indie video formats. Context: Released May 15, 2024 as the second single from Loma's third album 'How Will I Live Without a Body?' (Sub Pop, June 28, 2024), 'Pink Sky' emerged from an extraordinary post-pandemic creative reunion. The trio, Emily Cross (Dorset, UK), Dan Duszynski (central Texas), and Jonathan Meiburg (Germany), reconvened in Cross's Dorset stone cottage, a former coffin-maker's workshop, to record with minimal instruments. The song's dubby, mischievous groove was recorded with only a nylon-string guitar, 2-piece drum kit, Casio keyboard, and clarinet. The animated video, built from Cross's own watercolor artwork and animated by Sabrina Nichols, extends the album's theme of embodiment, loss, and reconnection into a visual form that is deliberately handmade and organic, counterpointing the digital era's polished production norms. Director notes: Directed and animated the official 'Pink Sky' video working from a series of watercolor drawings by Loma's Emily Cross. The collaboration is notable for its division of artistic labor: Cross supplied the source visual imagery drawn from her own fine-art practice, while Nichols animated and directed the final video work. The video was released May 15, 2024 via Sub Pop Records. Nichols had previously directed animated content for The Smile's 'A Light For Attracting Attention' and youbet's 'Nurture,' as well as music videos for The Fall and Car Seat Headrest, establishing her as a key figure in the indie animated music video space of the early 2020s.