Jimrat push the limits of conceptual narrative on progressive visual album 'Instant'
Boundary bursting Boston conceptualists jimrat exponentially expand the impact of their latest album with a wholly realized visual narrative element that transcends categorization to stand as a breathtaking commentary on mortality, companionship, and the elemental magnetism that connects disparate souls across the vastness laying beyond the veil of human perception.
Regarded on its own, Instant is a remarkably well crafted album, incorporating touchpoints of progressive and art rock into a densely constructed post-shoegaze presentation that sweeps the listener along on waves of sound, undulating like scaled serpents entwined and writhing below the surface of still waters. Moments of serenity are shattered with bursts of prehistoric intensity and otherworldly terror before crashing once again with breathtaking beauty into exquisite tapestries of emotion rendered as living sounds.
Despite the inherent heft of the compositions, Instant never overwhelms. Like its title suggests the album bears a refreshing immediacy that refuses to obfuscate symbolism behind performative pretense. Instant is a humble album, one that invites warmly and encourages organic self-discovery at one’s own pace, offering itself freely for individual interpretation with the stately grandeur of oil-on-canvas occupying the hallowed halls of a metropolitan gallery.
Boldly moving their art beyond the grooves and bits of recorded music into the visual space, jimrat have crafted a full-length conceptual short film choreographed in time with the natural ebbs and flows of the album itself. Directed by Holden Morgan, Instant as a film exhibits an incredible level of polish, replete with confident camerawork, dynamic lighting, and a brilliant sense of warmth and humanity juxtaposed with gothic undertones and a propulsive, stream-of-consciousness momentum.
The journey begins on a train; a somber, Miyazaki-esque passage into the unknown where an elderly woman dances along the aisle with a youthfulness at odds with her implied age and contrasted against the band solemn and scattered among the seats. Hers is an act of joyful acceptance, embracing fate in a way that the others are unwilling, or yet incapable, of doing.
Upon reaching their destination, the true narrative of Instant begins. Here among a dormant winter landscape the band grapples with their individual and collective identities, wandering between towering trees and swaying grasses toward a climax that hovers tantalizingly beyond the tips of outstretched fingers. As day and night flash and merge, combative explosions erupt and fade as fiery tempers ignite passionate discourse expressed with ballet-like movements that roll and heave with monumental physicality. It is here that Instant introduces its omnipresent leitmotif, a shovel. A simple tool that represents a myriad of concepts throughout the film, the shovel becomes an icon of concealment, of revelation, and of destruction dependent on the intent and circumstances of the one who wields it.
Slowly, forcefully, the band begins to coalesce as a unit, enshrouded in umbral layers of druidic mysticism to cast their collective spell. Droning, discordant tones resonate as they find their footing, poked and prodded by hovering shades like nagging spectres of doubt and distrust clouding the psyche and seeking sabotage from the shadows. But the band remains resolute, even as members attempt to flee in frustration, dragged back into the fold by companions refusing to acquiesce to failure. Arrayed in a circle the band casts their enchantments, exorcising all measures of reservation to strip themselves bare within the crucible of creative rebirth, casting aside their spaded implements to take up instruments as players banded together with joyful faces upturned toward the sun, radiating with ecstasy of companionship and creation.
Experience Instant on YouTube and stream the album on Spotify. Follow jimrat on Instagram.