Serj Tankian's voice is one that can be picked out from a line-up, making for one of the most iconic tones in all of music, never mind in nu metal. Producer Brendan Angelides, whose previous soundtrack work includes Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Mirage, clearly knew this, as he recruited the System of a Down frontman for his take on David Bowie's iconic Earthling cut "I'm Afraid of Americans."
For the music video, which can be seen below, Angelides used childhood photos of both himself and of Tankian, editing them together and using motion capture to achieve the surrealist final product. Also, full disclosure, the "meow" sample used in the last verse's line of "Johnny wants pussy and cars" made me audibly chuckle the first time I heard it, so well-played.
Angelides had Tankian in mind from the jump, explaining that, after he found himself singing the words to Bowie's song over the beat he'd created (transcription by Louder Sound):
"The first person I thought to collab with was Serj. He has been an inspiration to me forever and I'm now lucky to call him a friend. The video is built from our childhood photos. We filmed ourselves to drive the motion capture, then face-tracked, composited, and had a mosh party."
The track comes from Angelides' upcoming album Can You Feel The End Begin?, which is set to release on August 14th through his own Ancestor label. The tracklist is as follows:
Can You Feel the End Begin? Tracklist:
01. Can You See The Light Begin?
02. Need To Know
03. Day After Day
04. 134141 (Feat. Lisel)
05. I’m Afraid Of Americans (Feat. Serj Tankian)
06. Pumpkin
07. There is a Rainbow, In The Sky That’s Bright, As Bright As Your Soul
08. FRx
09. Hollow The Crown
10. Seahorse Song
11. Small Winndow
12. Can You Feel The End Begin?
