Last week, Karen O and super producer Danger Mouse unveiled their highly anticipated collaborative album, Lux Prima. To support the record, the duo served as musical guests on Monday night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But it wasn’t your standard late night performance.
In a highly stylized video, the duo delivered “Woman”, Lux Prima’s second single. Instead of simply playing the song for the studio audience, however, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman and the superproducer aka Brian Burton called upon Spike Jonze to direct the appearance. Karen O and Jonze have a rich collaborative history spanning back to the former’s work on the soundtrack for Jonze’s critically acclaimed 2009 adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. They also used to date.
For the performance, Jonze took a single-shot, black-and-white approach, bringing set props like a burned out car and a leafless tree to the Ed Sullivan Theater stage. Burton played bass with the band, but the focus was mainly on O, who displayed some highly choreographed dances alongside a diverse squad of women — including Beanie Feldstein of Lady Bird and Booksmart. Even the audience and Colbert himself got involved with a bit of call-and-response hand movements.
Watch for yourself below.
Next up, O and Danger Mouse have a panel scheduled with the New York Times this Wednesday. The two famed artists will then host “An Encounter with Lux Prima” from April 18th to 21st at Los Angeles’ Marciano Art Foundation, with the event promising an immersive, communal listening and viewing experience for their new collection.
As for Jonze, he’ll next collaborate with the surviving Beastie Boys for their upcoming “Beastie Boys Show”.
