DéCollage's Music-Video Trilogy Begins With "Vortex Chooseroo"

Musician Reed Fox and his avant-pop band déCollage are premiering a new music video, "Vortex Chooseroo," the first in a futuristic trilogy he created with artist Max Geimer, who has been doing the band's live visuals for the past nine years.

What started as Geimer live-painting at shows has transitioned into projections of multimedia visuals that tell a grander story than what a canvas alone could communicate. These narratives have culminated in this music-video series, a psychedelic reimagining of the universe's creation story.

"It begins with the beginning of the universe and ends with man leaving Earth and colonizing Mars," says Geimer. "The first part is creation through the extinction of dinosaurs."

Watch the first installment exclusively here:


When Geimer is not creating videos or visuals in the Moon Magnet Studios with Fox, he works as a science teacher — a profession that influences his aesthetic, including his use of an overhead projector in performances. Geimer goes beyond paints and incorporates other materials — such as cotton, mylar and "lots of LEGOs" — into his projections

"I look forward to the brainstorming process of coming up with ideas and figuring out how to represent them in media," he says, "Here’s a story we want to tell. How can we do this in a way that isn’t just painting and illustration work?

"Editing the video was hard, because it was painstaking work. It was challenging," adds Geimer. "We are trying to do one take of these scenes, and I have to be on point, Reed has to be on point, the lighting has to be on point, and I’m excited for the second video because we learned a lot about how to craft scenes that appear seamless."

While they have been telling this creation narrative for the past two years in live shows, the video trilogy marks a new beginning for the band. Fox is set to release a new song every week for the rest of this year with various bands and hopes to make room for new narratives to take over.

"Reed has said before that the narrative of the show is about the downfall and redemption of man," says Geimer. "Going to another planet is the redemption of our inability to get along here on planet Earth. There's the hope we might be able to collaborate for a greater good to not only save our species, but to go beyond the limited space we have here on the planet."

The otherworldy concept mixes well with the cut-up psychedelic sounds that déCollage produces. In the video, the lyrics are secondary to the visual storyline.

"The genre is called aestheticism. It’s when something is aesthetically beautiful but may not have meaning," Fox says of the song, "It's a collage."

Rainbow Militia, with Chimney Choir and DeCollage, 6 p.m. Thursday, July 18, Levitt Pavilion Denver, 1380 West Florida Avenue.