In Del Bel’s “The Rains,” the end is now, and it’s going to take a long time. The trippy, spooky tune from their upcoming album has been given the royal treatment by artist/musician Steph Yates, whose stop-motion collage is drenched in violence and terror. Lone gunmen roam the plains, fallen gods watch and cry, a mob gathers in the distance. It’s a nightmare. As Yates explains, this is the fruit of collaboration between her and the band. “Tyler sent me the album and "The Rains" jumped out at me, struck me as deliciously moody, definitely rich in imagery through its lyrics but also through its tones and instrumentation,” she says. “To me the song paints this vague and shadowy world, romantic and dark, and I wanted to try to convey that world visually.”Although making a collage and making a song involve at least different kinds of scissors, for Yates sounds and images overlap and intersect: “The process of songwriting for me definitely has a visual component, as does listening to music. Over the last year or so, I’ve gone out to see quite a bit of live improvised music and have become fond of closing my eyes, listening very carefully to every little sound, and visualizing what I hear. I think of it as an exercise, sort of. Sometimes what I see is very strange and abstract. Sometimes it is just animals running around.” Del Bel’s new record won’t be out until February, and Steph Yates’s band Esther Grey will be releasing something in the spring. So, this atmospheric slow-burner will have to tide you over.Henry Adam Svec is a writer living in Canada - @performingtime