The Claypool Lennon Delirium's "Blood And Rockets" video is a trippy fever dream
Later this month, Sean Lennon and Primus’ Les Claypool will drop their second album as The Claypool Lennon Delirium. South Of Reality arrives on February 22 via ATO Records, and it’s been previewed with “Blood And Rockets,” a six-and-a-half-minute sprawl of eerie psych-rock that sets the duo’s acid-soaked sensibilities against a lyrical tapestry encompassing outer space, rocket scientist Jack Parsons, and Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis.
Now, as was undoubtedly destined, the song has received a gorgeous mindfuck of a music video from animator Rich Ragsdale that brings the song’s subjects and themes to vivid, unnerving life. Goats, horns, and pentagrams abound, as does a swarm of nipples and a number of dick-shaped rockets.
In a statement to The A.V. Club, Lennon calls the video “absolutely historically accurate in every way, down to the finest detail.” He also offers a bit of context on Parsons and Crowley. Read it below.
Jack Parsons is an American hero. He pioneered the liquid fuel technology that got us to the Moon. He founded the company that later became NASA, and so a large crater has been named after him on the dark side of our Moon. But most interestingly, he was a devout leader in Aleister Crowley’s cult, the Ordo Templi Orientus, and practiced orgiastic chemically fueled sex magic at his house in Pasadena in his free time. Some say his preoccupation with the occult lead to his mysterious self inflicted demise. The video we present to you today, directed by Rich Ragsdale, is absolutely historically accurate in every way, down to the finest detail. All the names and dates have been preserved. The role of Baphomet was played, quite convincingly, by the ghost of another American hero, Marlon Brando. We hope you enjoy it.
Ragsdale also discussed the video’s origins with us. “Last year, Sean sent me a book on the life of Jack Parsons and asked if I could turn it into an animated music video. Since I’m not a professional animator this made perfect sense – challenge accepted,” he said. “After months of not seeing the sun, the final result is a deep dive into a pulp sci-fi world of explosives, rocket science, and sex magick, where Babylonian goddesses cavort with Jack’s disembodied head and space phalluses impregnate celestial orbs… or at least I think that’s what’s going on.”
We think so, too? Watch the full thing above. We’re still not sure if it’s SFW, but one might want to err on the side that it isn’t.