One of the most acclaimed albums of 2009, the Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love is an epic song cycle that the band has played to sold-out audiences all over the world. Inspired by the album’s heft and range, four animators with widely different approaches have created original films that visualize the album in its entirety. Each work in this four-part series bears a unique aesthetic approach to the material and, like the album itself, communicates the joys and sorrows of being open to the world. Each psychedelic section, with techniques ranging from stop motion to CGI to hand-drawn illustration, seamlessly and breathlessly explores themes of beauty, angst and foreboding. The highly conceptual film, as noted in Variety, “is the kind of project that could easily collapse under the weight of its pretensions. But, it succeeds, brilliantly.”


(60 min, Hornet Flux Inc., Capitol Records)