Broken By Design Music Video
Life is a cycle of forced obsolescence. What is new now will one day be old, everyone and everything is designed, by nature itself, to eventually fail. Grasping this concept may be hard, but knowing does come with a certain sense of freedom.
Some plans are doomed from the start, but if it’s what we believe in, it must be carried out with no hesitation. The ideas behind this song closely align with a failed plan from a certain film, and so the ideas were melded into visual form.
All cinematic magic is due to the talented Brett Smylie, with locations provided by both dragons. Shot over the course of two days, please enjoy our boys' formal acting debut.
NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2022 Submission - Chiba Blues
Every year we swear up and down we’re gonna enter the NPR Tiny Desk Contest and every year we miss the mark by days… but this year… this year was surprisingly different! And in a good way! We ended up filming several songs but decided to go with Chiba Blues, as it felt the most energetic and like it showcased the back and forth goofy interplay between us that is so integral to balancing the serious nature of Skeptik’s songwriting.
Filmed at Mothership Studios SF, Dan’s place of work, we hope you enjoy watching as much as we enjoyed filming!
Bee Stings Music Video
What does real even mean, if I get a bee sting in my dream when I wake will it bleed? The first music video off our upcoming release, Synthesthesia, Bee Stings explores the line between dreams and reality. If dying in a dream means you die in real life, what about when it happens in a video game? A tabletop RPG? A snyth fueled hip hop song? The implications may be earth shattering!
Based on a childhood thought of MC Skeptik, connecting the dots laid out by franchises like The Matrix, .hack//, and Nightmare On Elm Street led to the question "If you get a bee sting in a dream, would you bleed in real life?" Childlike wonder leads to adulthood existential crises, but isn't that just how it goes?
Dark Space Lyric Video/AMV
Inspired by that one part in FF8 where Squall and Rinoa are caught in the void of space - Dark Space is a narrative concerning mankind’s inevitable need to abandon the planet we’ve ravaged and mistreated for so long. Whether we get it together and treat the planet right or not, eventually the sun will go and take everything with it. We must look, and reach, to the stars, or we are doomed. Okay, maybe in like a billion years but it still haunts us in our sleep! Dan’s spacey piano accentuates Skeptik’s natural story telling rhythm, shifting dramatically in the final verse/act.
Skeptik Fake Four Fridays solo performance
In February 2021 Skeptik was invited to perform as part of Fake Four Friday’s again and combined dubldragon. tracks and one from an unreleased collaborative ep with mc/producer Phat J to hold it down as a single dragon!
dubldragon. on Fake Four Fridays
In September 2020 we did a full duo performance at the height of the pandemic in full face masks! Proving once and for all that its really not asking too much of anyone to wear them in their daily life so we can finally end this thing and get back to fun stuff like live shows, touring, travel, and generally enjoying our lives! Huge thank you’s to Ceschi, Niki, and the rest of the Fake Four Inc team for having us!
Marble Music Video
Were you there, all along, in the marble? Or were you shaped by the force of your own creation? A simple question with no simple answers. The third video released from the album Macroforms. Features art and performances from Amanda Marranca, SpaceWalker, and L.I.F.E! The video chronicles four different artists of four different disciplines as they practice their crafts, documenting the highs and jubilations as well as the lows and frustrations. All those moments of sweat and pain are completely crystalized in the moment of triumph when you stand before your creation and realize, “Hey, I made that”
The Aleph Music Video
The second single released from Macroforms, video animated by the awesome and talented Araless! What if all of the knowledge in creation stood before you? Could you taste its nectar without going mad? No. No you could not. Inspired by the machine in the book Mona Lisa Overdrive that is said to contain the shape of the universe, the song is a cautionary tale for those that wish to know everything and play God
Case Music Video
The most personal song we’ve released to date and the first single from 2019’s Macrofroms, wherein Skeptik wrestles with his depressive feelings and the aftermath of a suicide attempt nearly ten years in the past. None of us are alone in our pain, we released this song with the simple message: reach out if you are in pain, no matter how hard it may be. Again: you are not alone.
dubldragon. on Radio Concuss
In early 2018 while on tour with Strange Famous Records artist DopeKnife we were invited by our friends at Radio Concuss to come by and do a performance of several at-the-time unreleased tracks!
Underground Hip Hop Blog Mic Sessions
In 2018 while on tour with OneWerd we stopped off in LA at the offices of UGHH and were invited to record a live mic session performance of our song the Aleph! The format caused us to have to switch up our performance style, but we had a ton of fun and hope to return for another episode eventually!
It Doesn’t Matter Music Video
The second single and video off our 2015 album, Y Wulvz?, was the nihilistic-flavored bop It Doesn’t Matter! Suffering from the pain of heartache, the trails of societal pressures, or simply drowning in a pool of ennui? Sometimes it helps to remind yourself that at the end of the day It Doesn’t Matter!
Eros Shrugged (3Way) Music Video
Directed and edited by Tonny Villarreal as part of his Poet’s Experiment film series, focusing on performers set against black backdrops. The message of the song is a simple one - love breeds pain, but its pain that we must endure if we are to reach eventual happiness. And to be fair, its not all bad.
