Low-key rocker, Kurt Vile's music video for "Life Like This," a track off his new album, b'lieve i'm going down, is like a mild mushroom trip. Exuberantly colored illustrations progressively seep into view, casually integrating cartoon-like animation with real life video of Vile in his dark studio.
Following in the Gorillaz’ footsteps, Vile eventually forgoes real life and sinks into his cereal bowl of Cheerios, resurrecting as a cartoon for the second half of the new tune. According to the video's writer, director, and animator, Adam Avilla, "Life Like This" tells the story about getting at the heart of inspiration and the surreal disjointed journey that the pursuit entails; getting lost in one's own thoughts, and from those thoughts reaping the inspo for their work.
Vile's lackadaisical singing voice evokes the Philly-based artist's fourth album, Smoke Rings For My Halo – tender, intimate, and more acoustically driven than his most recent work.
B'lieve I'm Goin Down offers a more stripped down sound than what has come before, however that does not mean that Vile hesitates to experiment on the record. In fact, he takes to the banjo and the piano to create simple, wistful melodies; an obvious dissent from the grandiose tracks on his last album.