Video premiere: The Graylings, ‘Hummingbird’

Kevin Bronson on August 22nd, 2019

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Folk music has been the family business for Zachary and Bridget Galanis for the better part of a decade. The couple has done studio work, written scores, sung in the LGBTQ Choir of Los Angeles and performed around Southern California as Zach & Bridget. But they realized a greater vision with their new full-band project, the Graylings.

Their debut album “Tell Me How It Ends,” recorded by Billy Burke at Loveless Motel in Sierra Madre, saw the Galanises teaming up with bassist Jose Galvez (Ozma), drummer Jon Rygiewicz and keyboardist Derek Purdy (the LGBTQ Choir of L.A. accompanist). The songs were culled from more than 150 Zachary wrote over the course of the year, and in their writing and arrangements, they reveal the work of veteran hands. The spoiler: “Tell Me How It Ends” is a little bit folk, a little bit country, a little bit classic rock and a little bit alternative.

Two music videos serve as excellent calling cards for the album. “Hummingbird” is a Western noir track with a Lord Huron vibe, and the video was conceived by Cassandra Chowdhury and Damon Stea of Mindfruit Studios. It portrays a narrative of a brooding world turning on its creation as those “woke” try to awake the sleeping, the band explains. The effect was achieved by rotoscoping the characters, and then using forced perspective to project them onto fabric in miniature worlds.

The rocker “Entertain Us” broods in a different way — Bridget Galanis stars in the video directed by Michael Friberg as the song wonders about artists who opine.

||| Watch: the video for “Hummingbird”