Django Django 'Spirals' by Maxim Kelly

Maxim Kelly employs 19th century tech to create a mesmerising, appropriately-shaped video for Django Django's Spirals, the band's first new material since 2018.

By recreating the Phénakisticope, a pre-cinematic invention to create 'motion pictures', Kelly has created a series of mandala-like circular patterns, encompassing images of Django lead singer David Maclean, that animate as they spin around. As they do so, they also replicate the spiralling effect that's referenced in the lyrics and also the music.

This smart visual idea takes the viewer on a psychedelic experience that also sits perfectly with the band's canon of inventive visuals for their music.

The single will be available to stream and download on all the usual digital platforms and also as a 10” vinyl b/w exclusive track The Ark, available from www.djangodjango.co.uk and all independent record shops.

MAXIM KELLY:

I was drawn to how the animations flow in and out, drifting and duping the mind and then back again.

“The approach behind Spirals by Django Django was to translate the psychedelic trip through The Victorian technique of the phénakisticope. The visual illusion generated by spinning the disks at the correct speed coupled with the shutter of a camera is both confusing and hypnotic. 

"I was drawn to how the animations flow in and out, drifting and duping the mind and then back again. This felt a lot like the psychedelic experience to me. The challenge was to fuse the old with the modern. The analogue and the digital. Updating and modernising the technique.”