Illustrator Shantell Martin doesn’t plan out her next line or shape, but instead lets the pen guide her hand. In a similarly fearless and experimental fashion, guitarist Kaki King combines fret-tapping, slap bass techniques, and intricate finger picking to improvise her sculpted soundscapes. Naturally, the duo’s collaborative music video for King’s “Anthropomorph,” (off King’s new album The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body) which premieres today on The Creators Project, is a harmonious conversation between two artists who speak a similar language, although they work in different disciplines.
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“Music really helps give my lines and words life, it brings a natural spring to them," says Martin of the freestyle drawings she initially made to the track's solo guitar demo. “Listening and creating live to Kaki's piece was almost like meditating: becoming lost in the song; so full and present.” In previous performances, Martin has filled MoMA, the TED stage, Hong Kong stores, and PULSE Projects with live doodling installations—creations in which the process was just as integral as the end result.Once King saw Martin’s finished illustrations, she was inspired to rethink her own composition: “When I saw what she had created, I heard percussion, horns, finger snapping, and organs. So I added those instruments to the final audio track. It was a beautiful back and forth.” King’s album, which will be released on March 3, spotlights the guitar’s symbolic power and capabilities, and it’s “inner life and protean power.”Watch "Anthropomorph" above, and immerse yourself in screencaps from King and Martin’s collaboration, below:
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