Music is a powerful visual and inspirational tool. From the way lyrics craft scenes to every last note that form an emotion. An album embodied a collection of those powerful emotions and it used to be that when an album came out, it wasn’t just about the music, it was a complete artistic vision. From the album art, the pull outs, all the way down to the very last note. It was a package that lead to a journey visually, audibly, and emotionally. Somewhere along the way, the impact that music carries has slowly diminished as technology has made it easier to create sounds and share them. Now an album is a folder with a bunch of digital files and .jpeg, and while it can be easily bought, shared and listened to, it doesn’t have the same story or feel to it.

An ambitious project from an amazing group of musicians has been underway to show that we can take the technology that has diluted the message and use it’s powers to create what used to be one of the greatest things you could ever touch. A fully digital album that has all of the qualities of a physical album. Last year, Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden launched a Kickstarter to help fund their collaborative project, “The Shape The Color The Feel”. Composed of 1 record and 9 films with 8 filmmakers across 7 cities. “A community supported collaboration of music, film, photography, and visual art.” After the songs were written and recorded, they were handed off to the filmmakers who crafted their visions. Successfully funded, the project is on track to release the album on February 11, 2014.

In a time where a whole world of sound and experience can be compressed into a tiny digital file that we send to each other on our cell phones, we like the idea of attaching moving picture to this tiny little file and giving it some weight.

I like that idea too, and I’m also proud to premiere the project’s next music video for the track “Hangover”. The music video was directed by Jesse English, who also created the album art and a photo installation that encompasses the visual side of the project.

I’ll be hanging out with Kate Tucker and Jesse English on Wednesday, January 15th at 1:30pm CST. We invite you to join us as we find out more about what it was like to complete the album. If you have a question for Kate or Jesse, leave it the comments and it may get answered live.

Catch the Hangout over on our Google+ Page