Like many artists, Keats Ross doesn't just produce in one medium. His work under the name Dakota Slim (and with Spare Spells) is just one of his outlets: He's also a writer and a founder of We, The Hallowed, an artist collective with virtually no forms unrepresented.
Unsurprisingly, Ross has amassed a collection of creative friends who also practice in multiple mediums, including animation. Enter Logan Ford, an illustrator and animator who produces under the moniker GNAR Illustrations.
Ford's talent for animation is evident in the video for "Night Thief," a cut off Dakota Slim's July release, Cactus Crown. The meticulous nature of hand-drawn animation is amplified here by how well the visuals line up with the music. As a saxophone wells up, flashes of otherworldly light dot a mountainous landscape; one of these flashes eventually takes a lasting form to destroy the forest in the foreground. Against soft, spooky vocals, orbs descend to the earth and take the forms of predator and prey. Staticky percussion punctuates changes in color and form, and just as a canine creature is about to overtake a rabbitlike animal, their forms are all but obliterated as the lyrics come to a close.
True to the collaborative nature of the video, Ross says he's "extremely proud of the work [his] friend put into it," to say nothing of his own work on his first solo release in over four years.
