Billy Morison’s third solo album The Morrison Project released in April of this year, but he continued to attract attention for the project in September with the release of a music video for the single “Incite the Watch.” Incite the watch finds Morrison team up with Corey Taylor and Steve Vai to create a gritty, hard-hitting track.
The video was produced using a blend of artist-created character animation with an application called CineTech. This software creates AI-generated backgrounds and visual effects to go along with the artist-made animations. As a result, the video created a unique end product that blends the artistic capabilities of AI and artist to create a perfect visual landscape that matches the song’s intense sound.
Taylor’s vocals are compressed to open the track, making them feel distant and ominous as the instrumentation builds with dissonant pianos and heavily distorted guitar lines from Morrison.
However, its Vai’s massive guitar solo that stands out most on the track. As the track fades out from one of its pounding, aggressive choruses, Vai’s delayed guitar cuts through the rest of the instrumentation with a minimalistic but ear catching opening few bars. The solo quickly ramps up to showcase Vai’s virtuosity. It is a perfect ending to a track that’s relentless energy attracted Vai.
Billy Morrison is always getting into some kind of intense and creative musical mischief, and this record is the evidence of that. When he sent me the track “INCITE” I was very eager to contribute to it. It is slamming and crushing, and the energy of the track is palpable. It’s nice to be part of his mischief
Steve Vai
The darkness of the track inspired the artists and director Brett Boggs to create a video that depicts a dystopian universe that is in need of a hero – or in this case three flying superhero rockstars.
Additionally, the video is full of easter eggs to Morissons work. For instance, a gold bust of Ozzy Osbourne’s head is shown near the end of the track, a clever nod to the song “Crack Cocaine” featuring Osbourne on the album. In the end, it is a fun commentary on the longtime battle between corporate entities and rockstars through an animated, AI-fueled lens.
Make sure you watch the video now, and check out billymorrison.com to find exclusive merch bundles for The Morrison Project!
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