“Sudden Roots” is Teen Body at the top of their dream pop game set in a dream world and looking dreamy in Jen Campbell’s signature stop-motion stylings. And if you think the video looks trippy, listen to the conceptualizing process behind it. According to the band, “The initial inspiration that Jen had to work off of was visions of aliens abducting green lions from the Savannah and being inside of a different, foreign earth like planet with strange vegetation.”

Campbell took that concept and turned into the exciting mixture of video and animated images. This is how she describes the final product: “The music video for Sudden Roots is a dialogue between two worlds—the band’s apartment world and an “other” unconscious world.  In the apartment world, band members reflect on their new city life.  In the “other” world a green lion watches over them (The green lion is a reference the band came up with. Coincidentally, in alchemy, when a green lion devours the sun it represents a person becoming spiritually golden, enlightened).”

And lest you think this is all computer trickery, Campbell is very specific about the old school techniques she uses to get the feeling just right to match the very human emotions of Teen Body’s music. “I used a combination of stop motion animation and live action. The juxtaposition of these technique:  the hi-res soft lighting of the apartment scenes–scenes from the “real” world–heightens the distinction between the two worlds. For the “other” world I used multiple projectors to create the lo-fi, low-res image sequences playing across screens that furl and unfurl in the alien landscape.”