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Music

Catch a Funky Vibe With Garren Sean's Animated "Lift Off" Video

The Bay Area musician fuses his love for funk, soul, and rock.

Bay Area-based musician Garren Sean grew up with two parents who were passionate about music. His father worked in music production and his mother made him play the violin until he was 10 and converted to the guitar. From those musically-minded parents, he was exposed to and fell in love with 80s funk, 70s soul, and 60s psych rock.

Those elements are why the 22-year-old's music sounds like it has all of those genres squeezed into one. You can hear all of them in his single "Lift Off," a lush and groovy song about taking off with a love interest. Today, we're premiering the song's equally vibrant animated video. "It's supposed to set the vibe for when you listen to the music," Sean tells me during a phone conversation. "It plays to that late 60s-early 70s kind of cartoon vibe. My mom always played Schoolhouse Rock! and I wanted to do something like that."

"Lift Off" is the second single for Garren's upcoming debut album, GARREN, LP, which he sees as a love letter to the music he was raised on. "It's not really a heavily thematic album that carries a strong message," he says. "It's more so, establishing a sound that I'm creating for myself. It's me trying to step into my own lane. It's about piecing together that golden era that people talk about is not in music anymore. I'm trying to fuse that into the modern sound." The album is scheduled for a summer release. Watch the "Lift Off" video above.

Follow Lawrence Burney on Twitter.