This surreal Keinemusik video takes the “earworm” to a new level

Have you ever felt this tingling sensation, an irrepressible urge to nod your head around as you listen to an infectious song? The type of beat you’ll have on repeat for hours, getting all your cells to shake and wiggle? That’s what happened to conceptual artist Max Siedentopf when he listened to ‘Pay To Play’, the Keinemusik single featuring Bell Towers lifted from their new studio album, Send Return.

It was just the clue the unorthodox mind of Gucci Vault’s latest campaign creator needed to give birth to a new irreverent and genius video concept: it “revolves around a reptile enthusiast with a pet called “Little Dragon”. The man breeds his own earworms. Throughout the song, he takes one of the worms and places it into his ear. This is when he gets infected by the song, until he slowly turns into a worm himself,” he explains in an official statement.

Shot in various Berlin locations like Schönefeld or Frankfurter Allee on 16mm, Siedentopf’s bizarre and absurdly funny characters get in tune with their inner worm and slide their way around the city, thanks to slit scan effect and a lot of Kryolan GF-Qat N Soft hair gel. “A typical “Max” idea I would say,” describes Rampa from Keinemusik, who met Max at an exhibition in Berlin and got struck by “his humour and the simple looking obvious vibe in his work.”

If the song wasn’t catchy enough, the video’s striking visuals will haunt you for days. Discover it in full below, exclusively on TEB:

An AKKURAT STUDIOS production
Director Max Siedentopf
Director of Photography Igor Smitka
Cast Kai Eikermann
Production AKKURAT Studios GmbH
Producerin Elena Winterer
Executive Producer Rocco Kopecny
Production Manager Oskar Koller
Production Assistant Theodor Bittner Rosser
Steadicam Operator Axel Zschernitz
1st AD Bennet Weidemann
Focus Puller Ondra Kudrna
Gaffer Marcus Lauterbach
Production Designerin Susan Peter
Styling Larissa Bechtold
Hair & Make-Up Aurelia Braga de Matos
Choreography Franka Marlene Foth
Editor Paul O’Reilly
Coloristin Lucia Kovalova
Post Producerin Carola Schimpf

Published December 17, 2021. Words by EB Team, photos by Max Siedentopf.