Synopsis
An abstract cybernetic warning system comes alive in "Flash Alert," built from glossy computer-generated forms, molten surfaces, liquid-like shapes and pulsing light. The imagery shifts and morphs in close synchronization with the track's jagged rhythms, creating the impression of a digital organism receiving and transmitting an emergency signal. As the visual environment grows increasingly unstable, the warning appears to become reality, culminating in a flood that turns the sleek futuristic world into a scene of total sensory overload.
Factoids & Trivia
- "Flash Alert" premiered in November 2013 as part of Fractal Fantasy, the video-focused creative platform associated with Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones.
- The video uses high-resolution CGI rather than live-action footage, emphasizing liquefying matter, polished metallic surfaces, contorting forms and rapidly changing illumination.
- Sinjin Hawke later explained that the track was made during a flash flood in New York. L-Vis 1990 was receiving flood-alert messages on his phone while the pair were stuck in the studio by the weather.
- The video's concept developed from that situation: a cybernetic SMS organism warns of an approaching flood before the disaster finally arrives.
- The track acquired an unusually coincidental backstory when L-Vis 1990 played it at an outdoor festival in Chicago a few days after it was made. A storm reportedly hit as the track began, while further flood alerts appeared on his phone and the dancefloor flooded.
- Fractal Fantasy initially presented its music primarily through videos instead of conventional physical or digital releases. "Flash Alert" was later included on the 2015 compilation "Visceral Minds."