Berlin-based Grimson is a Swedish-American songwriter and animator whose voice quivers and narrates eloquent words of his creation. Glide discovered Grimson this Summer on the single, “I Hate Myself Now,” which was paired with a strange and mysteriously evocative music video. Well… Grimson is back with “Chimney Sweeper.” A kaleidoscopic sonic wormhole paired to a very cool animated film, the song carries some Beatlesesque qualities, Sgt. Pepper’s to be specific. It’s absolutely lovely. Boiled down indie with pure vocal spirit, spacious arrangements, and unique phrasing.
“I wrote Chimney Sweeper in my final year of high school in NYC, where I was enrolled in a sort of composition/performance class. I had been listening to a lot of 60’s pop and psychedelia (Beatles/Zombies/early Bowie), and wanted to write something cheeky and epic, that could close out our end of year show in a big beautiful performance hall. Oddly enough, my friend told our musical director that she had a dream that Chimney Sweeper closed out the show, which is maybe why I got picked to do the finale. Around that time, my mom showed me a film by Michel Gondry (famous for the White Stripes/Radiohead/Massive Attack music videos) called “Is the man who is tall happy?” It’s a disorienting documentary/interview with Noam Chomsky, but the most captivating part was definitely these scraggly hand-drawn animations all shot on a 16mm camera. I forgot most of the film, but the animations really stuck with me.”
