8/30/2013

Dizzee Rascal – “I Don’t Need A Reason” (Official Video)



Um. OK. So. This video fucking rules. So much going on here: Britain’s black population navigating a society that has a long and grand history of colonialism and pampered nobility, brain-melting video-looping effects, cartoon eyeball contortions, Dizzee’s own ferocious charisma. I could go on. It just rules. Watch it. Emile Sornin directed it, and the song comes from Dizzee’s forthcoming album The Fifth. But you don’t really need to know all that. You just need to know that you should watch it because it fucking rules.

Gesaffelstein – “Pursuit” (NSFW) (Dir. Fleur & Manu)



Gesaffelstein – “Pursuit” (NSFW) (Dir. Fleur & Manu)

Staggering, fascinating, harrowing. Cold Mailman’s “My Recurring Dream” video if it took place in a militaristic dystopian future-world. Please, someone, tell me where I can find one of those gold metallic gloves.

Robin Thicke – “Give It 2 U (Remix)” (Feat. 2 Chainz & Kendrick Lamar)



This doesn’t quite achieve the majestic smut-levels of “Blurred Lines,” but it’s not for lack of trying. Belongs on the list if only for the audacious nudge-levels of the Leisure Suit Larry referee uniform, and for the confetti cannons that fire off whenever Kendrick yells “doo!”. Dir. Diane Martel

Dinowalrus – “Grounded”



Directed by Emmy Pickett.

www.DINOWALRUS.com

Dinowalrus is Pete Feigenbaum, Liam Andrew and Max Tucker

Camerawork by Sam Finzi, Jennifer MacDonald, Megan Corley, Kate Pedatella

Delorean – “Destitute Time” Video



“Destitute Time” is the airy, fluttering new single from the breezy Barcelona dance-rock band Delorean, with Glasser on the backing vocals. The song’s new CANADA-directed video flips back and forth between band-performance footage and cartoonish images of a couple going through what looks like a very complicated relationship.

Jay Z – “Holy Grail” (Feat. Justin Timberlake) Official Visual



Jay Z has delivered a music video for his Justin Timberlake collaboration, the Nirvana-referencing “Holy Grail.” It’s the first song from Magna Carta Holy Grail to get a standard visual treatment, unlike “Picasso Baby,” which was filmed during a six-hour performance at an NYC art gallery this summer and clocked in at 10 minutes long.

Gold Panda – “Community” (Official video)



The video for “Community,” the tingly new single from the British producer Gold Panda, could’ve gone a few different ways, and it went at least a couple of them. The British menswear line Lux & Noah produced the video, but it doesn’t appear to be especially fashion-damaged. Instead, half of the video is crisp, pretty black-and-white imagery of London street life, including great close-up video portraits of passersby, and half of it is color footage of a Gold Panda show. They bleed together. It’s weirdly comforting.

Zola Jesus – “Fall Back” (Official Music Video)



On her new album Versions, Zola Jesus worked with the industrial-music provocateur J.G. Thirlwell and the modern-classical string section Mivos Quartet to rework her own older songs. The album’s sole new song is the surging, devastating “Fall Back,” and now that’s the first song from the album to get a video. Allie Avital directed the stark, gorgeous clip, a series of austere but increasingly intense black-and-white images of Nika Roza Danilova, who appears in desolate stone structures and abandoned woods, with water and fire flowing all around her. It’s a truly beautiful piece of work, and you can watch.

8/29/2013

Baroness – “March To The Sea” (Official Live Video)



As great as a showy music video can be, sometimes it’s far more satisfying to see live footage. You’ll realize that that goes double — fuck it, triple — in the case of this new live video by the recently recovered Baroness. It opens with the massive crowd chanting “Welcome Back” as frontman John Baizley looks out happily over the crowd before they start tearing through “March To The Sea.” It’s a little over a year after Baroness had their severe bus accident,  but they’ve gradually begun playing shows again. It’s devastating when tragedy affect artists we love and I always think back about Brainiac falling apart right before their big break when their lead singer was killed in a car accident. We’re really lucky to have Baroness back. This video reinforces that.

Still Corners – “Fireflies”



Earlier this year, the London synthpop duo Still Corners gave us their utterly gorgeous and winning young-love-in-the-roller-rink video for “Berlin Lovers,” one of the songs from their new album Strange Pleasures. And now they’ve made another video for a song from Strange Pleasures, returning to the landscape (Oregon) and the director (Christian Sorensen Hansen) who helped make that “Berlin Lovers” video so special. This time around, it’s “Fireflies,” which isn’t an Owl City cover, don’t worry. In the video, the two members of the group, playing young lovers themselves, amble through what looks like a series of mid-’80s TV commercials, with desert dunes and glimmering swimming pools and sun-dazed motorcycle rides captured as glamorously as possible.

Belle And Sebastian – “Your Cover’s Blown (Miaoux Miaoux Mix)”



Belle And Sebastian have a new release The Third Eye Center, a collection of B-sides, rarities and remixes — and now they have a new music video to go with it. Hannah Murray (who plays Gilly on Game Of Thrones, and is also on Skins) essentially plays the Catherine Deneuve role in a twee version of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion. Put another way, things are about to get very strange for Murray’s character. Her wallpaper is getting all flowery, when she tries to order a shot of vodka it turns into a adorable tea cup, and she’s constantly haunted by the image of some handsome Scottish gent. It all wraps up in a nice Shining-esque ending that’s about as cute as it is unsettling.

Danny Brown – “ODB” (Official Video)


The time has finally come. The yammering and excitable Detroit rapper Danny Brown, a dirty old man with a pill in his mouth and his dick in his hand, is just one month away from releasing his new album Old, the feverishly-awaited follow-up to his triumphant 2011 full-length XXX. The album is set to include contributions from a fascinating array of guests: A$AP Rocky, Freddie Gibbs, Schoolboy Q, Purity Ring, Charli XCX, and producers like Rustie, A-Trak, SKYWLKR, and Paul White. The last of those, a British beatmaker who previously worked with Danny on “Street Lights,” is responsible for the woozy, scattered beat for first single “ODB,” on which Brown absolutley spazzes. In that song’s brand-new video, director Ruffmercy throws in all sorts of crazy filters to further distort Brown’s already-fucked-up face.

Saint Rich – “Officer”



The music of Saint Rich can sometimes bring to mind the sunny, laid-back drift of Real Estate; in fact, both bands call New Jersey home, with only a single county separating them. However, while the music may display a summery vibe, Christian Peslak is anything but easygoing on “Officer,” especially in the opening line when he bluntly asks the titular police officers, “Why do you look so mad? You always look so fuckin’ angry/ but you should feel happy, and you should feel good to be king of the neighborhood.” Bitter, frustrated, and maybe just a little mocking, all those feelings are amplified in their new music video which features plenty of stoic, pissed off looking cops often with their faces blurred out.

The National – “Graceless” (Official Video)



Every once in a while, the members of the National like to remind us that they do not just sit around morosely brooding all day, and it’s always fun when that happens. Case in point: The video for “Graceless,” an elegant wallow of a song from their new album Trouble Will Find Me. The video looks like it’ll be a classy affair, shot in glossy black-and-white and opening as the band members show up in dark suits at a palatial suburban house. (It actually belongs to the parents of frontman Matt Berninger.) But then they all start getting shitfaced, jumping into the pool fully clothed, careening down a Slip-N-Slide, and engaging in a few other forms of awesome collegiate-alcoholic hijinks.

TV On The Radio – “Million Miles” Video



We just heard TV On The Radio’s truly excellent new song, “Million Miles,” and just like that, a video emerges, too. Directed by Natalia Leite (who, as far as I can tell, is also the video’s central figure: Blanche; the woman in the white dress above), the clip works as both an ecological warning as well as a surreal-ish narrative about man communing with nature. Or something.

As TVOTR’s Kyp Malone told NPR:
“It’s fun to take the idea of a song outside of the world of sound, give it fuller expression, expand its dimensions. I’ve wanted to collaborate with Natalia since I first saw her work and I thought this would be a good opportunity. We got a lot of help from a lot of creative people. Very excited to get to tell a story in this form.”

Meyhem Lauren – “Drug Lords” (Feat. Action Bronson & AG Da Coroner) Video



During last year’s SXSW, the Queens rapper Meyhem Lauren rounded up an absolutely murderous collective of internet-underground rap overlords and made an entire mixtape, the very good Respect The Fly Shit. The track “Drug Lords” has a Harry Fraud beat and guest verses from Lauren buddies Action Bronson and AG Da Coroner, and now it’s got a ridiculous new video. With the marionette likenesses of the song’s three rappers, the video shows us an over-the-top drug-den shootout, with bodies and white powder flying everywhere. As absurdist marionette action movies go, it’s not quite Team America: World Police, but it’s a lot of fun regardless. William Child and Declan Creffield direct.

!!! – “Californiyeah”



The Brooklyn-based twitchy-funk ensemble !!! shot the for “Californiyeah,” a song from their newish album THR!!!ER, guerrilla-style in Japan. Band soundman Jamie Harley shot the members of the band onstage, on the street, and in a glass elevator, with them lip-syncing to the song the whole time. (He also captured the exact moment where security kicked them out of said elevator.) The resulting video is low-tech fun, and it’s nice to see how much the people in this band still enjoy being in this band.

Daft Punk – “Lose Yourself To Dance” (Official)



As Stephen Colbert promised earlier this month, Daft Punk made a rare public appearance at tonight’s MTV Video Music Awards. The robots posed for photos on the red carpet outside Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and took the stage with Pharrell and Nile Rodgers to present the award for Best Female Video to Taylor Swift. Also, a minute of the rumored “Lose Yourself To Dance” video premiered during a commercial break. A full-length video for “Get Lucky” never materialized, so it’s unclear if this is a preview or this clip is all we’ll get. Watch it, and the video of Taylor getting her award, below.

8/26/2013

Depeche Mode – “Should Be Higher” Live Video



Even if you’re the type who doesn’t go to too many arena-sized shows, Depeche Mode is the sort of bigger band you should seriously consider going to see when they’re near you. Their catalog is lousy with classics, and even when they’re playing newer songs, they bring the sort of presence that you can’t fake. In person, Dave Gahan’s leather-club-Jim-Morrison persona, for instance, makes a whole lot more sense. Case in point: Longtime collaborator Anton Corbijn recently directed a live video of the band, as they play “Should Be Higher,” a deep cut from their 2012 album Delta Machine, and it shows off levels of swagger that not too many of the band’s peers can match.

Sophia Knapp – “Close To Me”



Into The Waves, the 2012 album from the psychedelic L.A. singer-songwriter Sophia Knapp, has already produced some imaginative music videos, for “In Paper” and “The Right Place” and “Evermore.” And now she’s made another one, for the euphoric “Close To Me,” in which director Daniel Katz finds different ways to rhapsodize about the West Coast sun, starting with Hollywood splendor and ending with desert drag-racing glamor. There are a lot of cars in this video, and all of them are just heart-meltingly beautiful.

PAPA - "Young Rut"




Music video by PAPA performing Young Rut. Directed by Norton

8/21/2013

Mount Kimbie – “Home Recording” Video



Here’s another visual offering from Mount Kimbie’s Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. For “Home Recording,” the British production duo teeters on the point of literal: while there isn’t voracious at-home production happening, it encompasses the internal feeling a lot of “bedroom recordings” have sonically.

Diarrhea Planet – “Separations”



To hear the band tell it, Nashville fuzz-punks Diarrhea Planet’s new video for “Separations” is inspired by Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. And maybe you’ll see a few echoes of that movie’s dreamy hedonism in the video. Mostly, though, this is just a super-fun basement-punk-show/pool-party video, and also there’s one part where one guy eats another guy’s brain. That’s probably all for the best. If the video ended with a titanic shootout, or if it kept cutting to a slow-motion beach party with Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites” playing, it might not work as well.

Color War – “Obelisk”



Brooklyn’s Color War having a thumping, gorgeous goth torch-song on their hands with their single “Obelisk.” The track, which comes from the forthcoming LP It Could Only Be This Way, has also been given a video, featuring the duo giving a shadowy but prismatically-tinged woods performance, replete with pray candle shrines.

8/20/2013

Night Beds – “Ramona” Video



Director Abraham Vilchez-Moran‘s video for Night Beds’ searching country-rock song “Ramona” is basically a short indie film, one that has to tell its story without the benefit of dialog. This one tells the story of a crusty seafaring type who longs for a certain type of family togetherness, one that he thinks he’s lost. It’s beautifully acted and elegantly told, even if I spent the middle third of the thing wanting to tell the guy to pull his head out of his ass.

Lady Gaga - "Applause" (Official Video)



Lady Gaga has been heating up the radio charts with her new single "Applause," but now she has a visual component to go along with her hot hew track.

In the video, the 27-year-old pop star is seen in a string of different outfits, ranging from lingerie to a black hooded bodysuit. "Applause" will appear on Gaga's new album, "ARTPOP."

Directors: Inez and Vinoodh
Producer: Gabe Hill
Production Company: GE Projects and theCollectiveShift

Major Lazer – “Scare Me” (Feat. Peaches & Timberlee) Video



For Major Lazer’s “Scare Me,” the group enlists a live action version of the fictional character they’re named after to stop a new missle that is going to be used by terrorist General Rubbish, who looks kind of like a dancehall version of Bane. It features maybe one of the most serious Nick Kroll roles ever, giving orders to Lazer and his sidekick Knife Fight played Lauren London (ATL, Entourage). Blake from Workaholics also appears in the video, which has a tiny nod to Robocop, too.

No Age – “An Impression”



Tomorrow, the hazy L.A. dream-punkers No Age return with their new album An Object, and one of its songs is a hazy float called “An Impression.” The two members of the band, Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, directed the song’s video themselves, and it’s an abstract series of images of hands and faces and pieces of paper floating through the color-negative ether. The end result isn’t too different from the stuff your art-student friends would make and then force you to watch in college, but it still stands as an excuse to listen to a deeply pretty song again.

8/19/2013

Superchunk – “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo” Video



Superchunk’s emotive punk-rock rager “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo” is a passionate, powerful, catchy-as-hell song about the inadequacy of music, about how it can’t always pull off whatever miracles we need from it. Almost all of the song’s new music video, from Junebug director Phil Morrison, is a collage of still images — people holding favorite records up for the camera, set against surveillance footage of snowy sheets. The message, as far as I can tell, is that music isn’t good for everything, but it is good for some things. It’s a weirdly triumphant little video.

Spiritualized – “I Am What I Am”


The very, very good Sweet Heart Sweet Light, the most recent Spritualized album, is more than a year old now. And it’s also been more than a year since the band teamed up with the great video director AG Rojas for the intense, visceral “Hey Jane” video. But Spiritualized have once again enlisted the services of Mr. Rojas, this time to make a video for the clanging space-vamp “I Am What I Am.” This time around, Rory Culkin (Macaulay’s youngest brother) plays a burnout kid in a burnt-out desert town, looking for escape anywhere he can find it. The video is lightly NSFW, and it’s got a couple of scenes that rank among the most disturbing things you will likely see this Monday morning, but it’s still a great video.

Soft Metals – “Lenses” (Official Video)



The last video from the L.A. synth duo Soft Metals, for “Tell Me,” was only barely a music video; it was wall-projected single-camera footage of a couple making out. Their new one, for “Lenses,” is more of a traditional performance-centric video, but it’s also got a lot going on, including trippy projections, twitchy-seductive dance moves, and some sort of ritual that involves candles and deer antlers. Eva Aguila and Patricia Hall direct.

The-Dream – “Too Early” (Feat. Gary Clark Jr.)



Back in May, we saw two new videos from The-Dream, for “High Art” and “Pussy.” Now The-Dream are back with another video, this time for “Too Early,” a track featuring Gary Clark Jr.

Akron/Family – “Sand Talk” (Official Video)



The raging-out psych-rock trio Akron/Family released their new album Sub Verses earlier this year, and they’ve just dropped their new video for the headlong rocker “Sand Talk,” the album’s second clip after the one for “Until The Morning.” For this one, director Al Beletic throws together a dizzy collage of the band’s archival footage — of live shows, of car-lit night-time parties in fields, of heartfelt conversations on pickup truck flatbeds.

8/15/2013

These New Puritans - "Organ Eternal" (Official Video)



British art-rock act These New Puritans have shared another video to accompany their latest record, Field of Reeds, released in June of this year. The "Organ Eternal" clip pairs the drama of the song with natural images of trees and grass, aerial shots of the band performing, and a woman running in the distance for what sublimely feels like forever. It was directed by Willy Vanderperre.

Draco Rosa Feat. Juan Luis Guerra - "Esto es vida" (Nueva version) Video



Music video by Draco Rosa Feat. Juan Luis Guerra performing "Esto Es Vida". Dir.  Jean Gabriel Guerra

Draco Rosa - "Esto es Vida" (2010). Dir. Angela Alvarado


Ra Ra Riot – “Binary Mind” (Official Video)



Ra Ra Riot clearly keep thinking about the future. The video for their song “Dance With Me” takes place in a post-apocalypse New York City where skeletons rule the town. But the clip for “Binary Mind” takes a much more positive spin on how the world will evolve, full of bright colors and Jetsons-esque architecture.

Anika – “In The City” Video



Earlier this year you may have heard journalist-turned-songstress Anika’s cover of Chromatics’ “In The City” for her Geoff Barrow produced EP on Stones Throw. It was a fantastic cover, and now it has been given a truly bizarre music video. Depicting a rather unorthodox wedding ceremony, we watch as suitor after suitor line-up to woo the bride with their impressive calf-muscles. It’s entertaining at first, but (much like Anika’s music) when you actually dig a little deeper it’s makes a subtly unsettling picture.

Butter The Children – “Spit It Out” Video



One of the best parts about Butter The Children’s new single was that while many shoegaze-inspired bands layer their sound in gauzy prettiness, they took a page from You Made Me Realise-era MBV and turned out something refreshingly raw. It was gritty, immediate, and catchy as hell. Now the band has a music video to match the sound. Not too much happens, but its simple focus on the band and who they are is appreciated because it’s pretty clear that we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.

Starred - "LA Drugs" (Official Music Video)



A pair of puppets get high; Sky Ferreira and Jennifer Herrema make cameos.

Camera Obscura – “Break It To You Gently” Video



Scottish indie-pop band Camera Obscura dropped a new album, Desire Lines, in June, and have now released a video for that album’s single “Break It To You Gently,” in which a runaway shopping trolley takes a rolling tour of (what I assume is) Glasgow. At one point, the carriage has a run-in with a dog on wheels — perhaps a reference to countrymen and old pals Belle & Sebastian? I hope so. As you might expect, the clip is cute as hell, absolutely befitting the sweet, melancholic track.

Grooms – “I Think We’re Alone Now”



Brooklyn band Grooms’ forthcoming album Infinity Caller is out next month and the band is prepping for its release with “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The swirling track has also gotten visual treatment directed by the band in conjunction with creative team Captain Hippo, which new band member Steve Levine is also in.

Pop Danthology 2012 - Mashup of 50+ Pop Songs



"Pop Danthology 2012"
Music and video mashed-up by Daniel Kim (http://www.facebook.com/danielkimmusic)

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: https://www.facebook.com/danielkimmus...

"The Making of Pop Danthology" (http://giftofocpd.com/2012/12/02/the-...)
"The Story Behind the Success of Pop Danthology" (http://giftofocpd.com/2012/12/11/the-...)

SONGLIST:
1. Adele - "Set Fire To The Rain"
2. Adele - "Skyfall"
3. Alex Clare - "Too Close"
4. Calvin Harris feat. Ne-Yo - "Let's Go"
5. Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe"
6. Cher Lloyd - "Want U Back"
7. Chris Brown - "Don't Wake Me Up"
8. Chris Brown - "Turn Up The Music"
9. Christina Aguilera - "Your Body"
10. David Guetta feat. Chris Brown & Lil Wayne - "I Can Only Imagine"
11. David Guetta feat. Nicky Minaj - "Turn Me On"
12. David Guetta feat. Sia - "Titanium"
13. Demi Lovato - "Give Your Heart A Break"
14. Ellie Goulding - "Lights"
15. Enrique Iglesias feat. Sammy Adams - "Finally Found You"
16. Far East Movement feat. Justin Bieber - "Live My Life"
17. Flo Rida - "Whistle"
18. Flo Rida feat. Sia - "Wild Ones"
19. Fun. - "Some Nights"
20. Fun. feat. Janelle Monáe - "We Are Young"
21. Gotye feat. Kimbra - "Somebody That I Used To Know"
22. Gym Class Heroes feat. Neon Hitch - "Ass Back Home"
23. Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull - "Dance Again"
24. Jessie J - "Domino"
25. Justin Bieber feat. Big Sean - "As Long As You Love Me"
26. Justin Bieber - "Boyfriend"
27. Karmin - "Brokenhearted"
28. Katy Perry - "Part Of Me"
29. Katy Perry - "Wide Awake"
30. Kelly Clarkson - "Stronger"
31. Ke$ha - "Die Young"
32. LMFAO - "Sorry For Party Rocking"
33. Madonna feat. M.I.A. & Nicky Minaj - "Give Me All Your Luvin'"
34. Maroon 5 - "One More Night"
35. Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa - "Payphone"
36. Nelly Furtado - "Big Hoops (Bigger The Better)"
37. Ne-Yo - "Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love Yourself)"
38. Nicki Minaj - "Pound The Alarm"
39. Nicki Minaj - "Starships"
40. One Direction - "Live While We're Young"
41. One Direction - "What Makes You Beautiful"
42. Owl City & Carly Rae Jepson - "Good Time"
43. P!nk - "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)"
44. Pitbull feat. Chris Brown - "International Love"
45. PSY - "Gangnam Style"
46. Rihanna - "Diamonds"
47. Rihanna - "Where Have You Been"
48. Rita Ora - "How We Do (Party)"
49. Swedish House Mafia - "Don't You Worry Child"
50. Tyga - "Rack City"
51. Usher - "Climax"
52. Usher - "Scream"
53. The Wanted - "Glad You Came"
54. Will.I.Am feat. Eva Simons - "This is Love"
55. Zedd feat. Matthew Koma - "Spectrum"

I am not making a single cent off of this mash-up. But there are ads on this mash-up because Kobalt Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management, and Sony ATV Publishing feel that they deserve to earn revenue off of my work (even though my work includes a whole bunch of other material they do not own).

Just Blaze & Baauer feat. JAY Z - "Higher" (Official Short Film)



Just before the whole “Harlem Shake” thing really popped off, Baauer got together with Just Blaze, one of the greatest rap producers ever, to make “Higher,” a hard-as-fuck trap rave track that was all shot through with Jay-Z vocal samples. (Right now, it’s tagged as “featuring Jay Z,” but Jay doesn’t rap on it or anything, so no.) The track now has a video from director Nabil, and like most things directed by Nabil, it’s incredible. The clip tells the story about a little kid in India who tries to get his revenge on a drunk-asshole martial artist type. It all looks like it’s heading toward a situation like the one with Ben Affleck and the paint in Dazed & Confused, but then things take… another direction.

"This Must Be The Only Fantasy" | Rodarte & Todd Cole (Short Film Soundtracked By Beach House)



Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sister design duo behind the line Rodarte, and photographer Todd Cole have linked up for This Must Be The Only Fantasy, a short film soundtracked by Beach House. In the film, a disgruntled Dungeons & Dragons player (played by surfer/model Sidney Williams) liberates herself from the basement, only to have her world turned into a real-life fantasy. Elijah Wood, who we already know plays fantasy well, and model Guinevere Van Seenus co-star.

Youth Lagoon – “Raspberry Cane” (Official Music Video)



“Raspberry Cane” was the cathartic peak on the back half of Youth Lagoon’s Wondrous Bughouse, and now animator Stephen McNally has provided an appropriately wondrous video. Born from the same homemade intimacy that embodies YG mastermind Trevor Powers’s music, McNally’s video depicts awestruck people observing massive, beautiful, and terrifying creatures. The situation brings to mind such disparate influences — from the nature-inspired beasts in Fumito Ueda’s Shadow Of The Colossus to the magic clashed hidden within harsh reality that Jeff Lemire mastered in his Essex County trilogy. The above image even brings to mind the titular horrors of the popular comic Attack On Titan. The greatness of the video though is the fact that McNally can channel all this into a clip that perfectly matches the sound of Youth Lagoon, which can be as fragile and weary as people found here while as magical and towering as the giant.

8/13/2013

HAIM – “The Wire”



It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time because today they’ve released the video for their you’ll-be-fine-without-me tune “The Wire” and it features a bunch of weepy and nostalgic exes, included one played by the Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone.

8/12/2013

Arctic Monkeys – “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” (Official Video)



A wasted Alex Turner hallucinates after a late night at the pub in the Nabil-directed video for “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” the latest single from Arctic Monkeys’ forthcoming AM. “It’s all sparse, clean lines and plaintively conversational lyrics, and it finds unforeseen common ground with, say, the xx, and Jessie Ware and all the other towering figures in the UK’s recent wave of dark and slinky R&B-derived pop,” Tom wrote of the song last month.

Erlend Øye – “La Prima Estate”



Erlend Øye is a Norwegian musician who makes up one half of Kings of Convenience; he also records solo albums. Following 2003′s Unrest, Øye recently announced a new album, La Prima Estate, due out later this year and inspired by his time spent living in Italy over the past year. The first single is the title track, “La Prima Estate,” sung entirely in Italian. Watch a video for the song below, and read what Øye’s label wrote about the track on Facebook.

8/10/2013

The Polyphonic Spree – “You Don’t Know Me” Video



The Polyphonic Spree have a new album out, Yes, It’s True. Surrounding its release, the band have made a video for “You Don’t Know Me.”

8/09/2013

Bob Dylan – “Pretty Saro” Video



“Pretty Saro” is a previously unreleased Bob Dylan track that was recorded during March 1970 sessions for his album Self Portrait, but ultimately didn’t make the cut. According to Rolling Stone, Dylan’s take on the 18th Century English folk song has never even made it to bootlegs, unscathed for 43 years in the possession of Columbia Records. Now it, along with 34 other alternate takes, demos, and live versions from the Self Portrait and New Morning sessions, will be released in a box set at the end of the month. Check out the collage video below, which was made by filmmaker and previous Dylan collaborator Jennifer Lebeau from images and video stored by the Farm Security Administration in the Library Of Congress.

8/08/2013

Julianna Barwick – “One Half” (Official Video)



The summer kicked off with Julianna Barwick’s “One Half” from her upcoming album Nepenthe and comes to a close (yep, sorry) with a video for the track. What starts off with looming portrait shots that build like the song turns into a celestial forest and odd picnic scene as the cut ascends into balladry.

Basement Jaxx – “What A Difference Your Love Makes”



While the video for Basement Jaxx’s “What A Difference Your Love Makes” hinges on a narrative of a mother and her sons (and a very literal interpretation of the song’s title) the primary meat of the clip is all dance. From the first dance scene, I was immediately reminded of Tofo Tofo, the Mozambican dance crew who inspired the choreography fro Beyoncé’s “Run The World” video. Their style of dance, which is called “pantsula,” is the kind of intricate footwork featured here. The video was shot in Alexandra, Johannesburg, South Africa’s oldest township, where pantsula originated.

The So So Glos – “Dizzy”



The So So Glos give visual treatment to “Dizzy,” the closing cut from their recent album Blowout, and their collaborators could not being any better. Facilitated by the L.A.-based nonprofit OMG Everywhere!, who set up week-long video workshops with children, the video for “Dizzy” features the Brooklyn band and a whole mess of kids jamming on cardboard instruments with googly eyes glued to their faces and just generally wreaking havoc in the most wholesome and adorable way.

Rhye – “3 Days” (Official Music Video)



“3 Days” is nestled right in the middle of Rhye’s excellant debut album Woman, and now the duo consisting of Mike Milosh and Robin Hannibal have released a music video for it. Made up of re-appropriating vintage footage of exotic dancers the band refers to it as “a calvacade of found footage cabaret.” It reminds me a bit of Man Man’s recent found-footage music video and both capture a melancholic tone with these edited together bits of film.

Quasimoto – “Catchin’ The Vibe” Video



Earlier this year the great Lord Quas (the alter-ego of Madlib) released a pretty great rarities compilation called Yessir Whatever. Now there’s a video for the track “Catchin’ The Vibe” that features a vinyl crafting garbage man. Now when I say garbage man I don’t mean like a state appointed refuse collector — I mean the video literally stars a man made out of garbage. Much like Quasimoto (the character) the man seems beyond that of a normal human. The song is great, but the most memorable part of the video is when the strange sketch manages to sell some of the vinyl he worked so hard to press.

Arcade Fire To Score Spike Jonze’s Her

Her

Arcade Fire season is approaching quickly: As rumors abound about the band’s upcoming fourth record (due out in October, they told one lucky fan on Twitter) and its supposed name, news has broken that Arcade Fire has also scored the newest Spike Jonze film, Her, which hits theaters this November.

Her is a sci-fi romantic comedy that stars Joaquin Phoenix (long time no see!), Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of a super-intelligent computer operating system. The film, Jonze’s follow-up to his take on Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are, is not the director’s first collaboration with the band: Where The Wild Things Are used Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” in its trailer, and Jonze directed the short film/long-form music video for their 2010 release The Suburbs.

Given their experience as collaborators, the film should be a comfortable fit. Check the intriguing trailer, and watch out for the credit: “Music by Arcade Fire.”

Born Ruffians – “Needle” Video



Born Ruffians seem to be exorcising youth demons in their song “Needle” but its video is full of young, fun-loving YOLOing. Concert scenes are punctuated with rooftop hangs, late night taco truck stops, photobooth laughs, and more.

King Krule - Easy Easy (Official Video)



It really is one of the best songs of the summer, and this newly released video embraces that quality with shots of Marshall and his friend smoking, sitting on the train, drinking, and hanging out rooftops. It captures that feeling of being young in the summer when long strings of days doing nothing feel indescribably significant. Marshall is a hell of a personality here too, singing to the camera with the kind of cockiness of a rapper, even his friend poses behind him at times like a hypeman (albeit a silent one.) It makes sense when you think of lyrics like “Same old bobby, same old beat/ well they got nothin’ on me,” and the sparse instrumentation – just enough of a foundation for his incredible vocals.

8/07/2013

Yo La Tengo – “Is That Enough” (Official Video)


Yo La Tengo’s charming video for “Ohm,” the opening track from their great new album Fade, splits its time between two things: A fantastical animated journey through a psychedelic imaginary universe, an an extended math problem full of music-dork wordplay. YLT’s new video for the lovely, lilting Fade track “Is That Enough” serves as a sequel to that “Ohm” video, and it focuses on the side of that video that everybody liked: The math part! If you can make it through all the whiteboard scribbling, there’s a fun cameo at the end. Donick Cary directs.

Laura Veirs - “Sun Song”



“Sun Song” is a prettily low-stakes indie-folk amble from the Pacific Northwestern singer-songwriter Laura Veirs, and it boasts a backing vocal from Neko Case, which is a pretty good thing to boast. The song’s new video superimposes an image of Veirs over crackling stock footage of clouds and fairgrounds and seagulls.

Medicine – “It’s Not Enough” (official video)



You ever get floaters? You know what I’m talking about — when something really, really small kind of floats on your eye and you get that weird ghosting image. It’s common, pretty much harmless, and actually kind of cool when it happens. Well the recently reunited shoegazers Medicine must have thought it was cool too, since the phenomenon is referenced in their new video for “It’s Not Enough.” It’s a simple effect, but it works really well with the band’s warped pop music.

Sigur Rós – “Stormur” Video

SigurRos_Stormur_Video

The video that I saw for Sigur Rós’ “Stormur” will not be the video that you see for the track. It won’t be the video any of my co-workers sees or any of the rest of the Stereogum community checks out. The band has set up a website that collects videos from Instagram with the tag #Stormur and uploads them to a site that plays an ever-evolving clip for the song. Check out the video here.

M83 – “Claudia Lewis” Video (Feat. Lily Collins)



Lily Collins stars in M83′s video for “Claudia Lewis” from 2011′s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. The clip, directed by The Help actress Bryce Dallas Howard, is the perfect visual representation of Anthony Gonzalez and co.’s interplanetary-meets-’80s teen flick ephemera sound, featuring an Collins as an otherworldly girl navigating a high school crush.

Kings Of Leon – “Supersoaker” Video



Along with a new single, Kings of Leon have also dropped the music video for “Supersoaker” today. In our initial post on the song, Michael mentioned how even though the band has definitely moved on from the “Southern Strokes” tag, this song actually does sound a lot like the Strokes, and the video reminds me of them too. We’ve got pretty standard rock video tropes here: the band is playing, often mugging for the camera, while surrounded by beautiful woman that they never seem to notice. Thanks to an Instagram-esque filter the video gains its modern twist, ironically, by how dated it looks.

Au Revoir Simone – “Somebody Who” Official Video



The reverb-happy, harmony-heavy New York synth trio Au Revoir Simone took four years to follow up their debut album Still Night, Still Light, but that sophomore effort Move In Spectrums is almost here, and now there’s a video for the lightly percolating first single “Somebody Who.” The vaguely disquieting clip, from the directing team HARRYS, has all three members standing glassy-eyed and motionless in an empty mansion, singing the song. They look like they’ve been hypnotized, which is weird, since they’re usually the ones doing the hypnotizing. (I haven’t seen them live, but every report I’ve seen indicates general rapture.)

Chvrches – “The Mother We Share” Video



Glaswegian synthpop trio Chvrches’ video for “The Mother We Share,” the song the group played on Fallon earlier this summer, starts out looking like a standard romantic-longing story, but that’s before its protagonist learns her mutant power. The best reason to watch the video, though, might be the artfully shot footage of the group performing. Good song, too.

DJ Fresh Vs. Diplo – “Earthquake” (Feat. Dominique Young Unique)



The fizzy dance-rap track “Earthquake” is a collaboration between Diplo and DJ Fresh — the British drum & bass one, not the producer of evocative and ’80s-reminiscent Bay Area cult-rap — and it features the Florida party-rapper Dominique Young Unique. It’s the first single from Fresh’s debut solo album, which is coming next year, but it’s getting a video now because it also appears on the soundtrack to Kick-Ass 2. And so you probably won’t be surprised to learn the the clip features Dominique — in eye-patch and earrings shaped like ninja stars — leading a crew of off-brand superheros (and one Slimer-looking kaiju) through scenes of New York mayhem. Watch the cartoonish, ridiculous, Jonas & Francois-directed clip.

Animal Collective – “Monkey Riches” (Official Video)



Animal Collective’s characteristically freaky new video for “Monkey Riches,” an extended wigout from last year’s Centipede Hz, tells the heartwarming story of a maniacal wizard who does phallic things with lengths of rope, and of his hapless assistant, who plunges down a well and into a psychedelic rope-world. Jack Kubizne directed the video, and the best thing about it is probably the nightmare-logic stop-motion animation, which reminds me of Hellraiser II. (Where I come from, that’s the highest of compliments.)

Porcelain Raft – “The Way Out” (Official Music Video)



Twitchy synthpopper Porcelain Raft will release the new album Permanent Signal in a few weeks, and the new video for the single “The Way Out” is a cinematic, conceptual affair. In one long, unbroken slo-mo tracking shot, director Michael Lawrence tells a story about a mostly-abandoned strip club and the two people who find each other there one day. You have to respect the level of work that went into something like this.

MGMT – “Your Life Is A Lie” (Official Video)



Skeletons, a talking dolphin, a poker game, a crying rock, books by “Daryl Oates” and “John Hall,” an elderly man in tighty whities, an egg pyramid, Andrew VanWyngarden as Pinocchio, and Henry Winkler (I think) consoling a teenage soccer player are some of the non-sequitor scenes you’ll see in MGMT’s video for “Your Life Is A Lie,” the first single from MGMT. And I’m barely giving anything away because director Tom Kuntz crams a ton of ideas into the two minute clip, which is also the year’s weirdest lyric video. It’s begging for the “10 Weirdest Gifs From MGMT’s New Video” treatment. Maybe you can give Buzzfeed a hand and share some in the comments.

8/05/2013

Mumford & Sons – “Hopeless Wanderer” (Offivial Video)



British banjo-folk pastiche-kings Mumford & Sons are more famous than a motherfucker, so they don’t have to care whether you like them or not. And yet, they’ve pulled at least a couple of moves that seem directed toward making you like them at least a little bit, including the repeated casting of people you already like in their music videos. First, there was Idris Elba in “Lover Of The Light.” And now comes the “Hopeless Wanderer” video, which features an all-star cast of famous comedy bros — Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman, Will Forte, noted bluegrass aficionado Ed Helms — all doing their best Mumford impressions and making what might be the most Mumford video of all-time. The video stays pretty straight-faced most of the way, which only serves to further skewer the band’s deathlessly sincere old-timey pose. And honestly, isn’t it a little bit brave for a band to hire famous people to make their whole thing look stupid in their own music video? I think it is. Either way, whether you enjoy liking or detesting this band, it’s a fun video. Forte’s fake scraggle-beard is obviously amazing, but don’t sleep on Sudeikis’s fake earrings. Sam Jones directs.

Jay Z – "Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film"



Last month, Jay Z stopped by the Pace Gallery in NYC to perform “Picasso Baby” for six straight hours, rapping directly into the face of attendees one at a time. The “performance art piece” was documented for a music video of sorts, in the form of a short film titled Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film. The short film aired last night on HBO. It starts end ends with interviews with Jay Z, and features appearances by various attendees of the event including Marina Abramovic (who inspired the piece), Judd Apatow, Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter Diana Widmaier Picasso, and others.

8/02/2013

Nelly – “Get Like Me” Video (Feat. Pharrell & Nicki Minaj)



2002 was a fun year.

Nelly – “Get Like Me” (Feat. Pharrell & Nicki Minaj) (Dir. Colin Tilley)

FKA twigs – “Water Me”


FKA twigs is a British artist — “singer” somehow doesn’t quite seem like the right word — who makes heady, obsessive, deeply personal music that musically fits with all the expansive bass-heavy music that’s come out in the wake of the xx. “Water Me” is her breakout single, and it feels important, its laid-bare relationship-talk floating through the glitched-out track from IDM producer and Kanye West collaborator Arca. Director Jessa Kanda has given the song a spellbinding visual treatment, using relatively subtle digital effects to turn FKA twigs’ face into something alien.

Telepathe – “Slow Learner”

Telepathe_SlowLearner_Video

“Slow Learner” is a new, Federal Prism-released single from Brooklyn synth-pop outfit Telepathe. For the video, the duo linked with director Dawn Garcia who took the awkwardness of an office crush and turned into a Tumblr-art-imbued weird world of anxiety and imagination. Pro-tip: If you like someone you work with, even if you’re working in design, probably best not to send him or her a .GIF of yourself. Or, try it and report back! Check out the video over at Myspace.

8/01/2013

Sebadoh - "All Kinds" (Official Music Video)



Quick, low-rez portraits of Sebadoh.

Annie – “Back Together” (Official Music Video)



“Back Together” is the new single that brings Swede-pop queen Annie back together with Richard X, the British producer who gave her, among others, the blog-pop classic “Chewing Gum.” The track consciously evokes the breezy Euro-house of the early ’90s, and its new video does the same thing even more forcefully. The clip is a full-on period-piece, pitched as an entry on an old video-countdown show, complete with amazing clips of all the other songs in the top five. (Shout out to Utrecht Amiga Squad.)

Psychic Ills – “See You There” (Official Music Video)



The perplexed-alien-wanders-Earth-streets video is practically a music-video genre in itself, and the clip for “See You There,” a bleary churn from New York space-rockers Psychic Ills, is merely the latest example. In this one, a gigantically rubber-headed extraterrestrial gets to know Brooklyn, looming creepily in classical black-and-white. Band frontman Tres Warren directs.

Oneohtrix Point Never – “Problem Areas”



The illustrated visuals were provided by avant-garde video artist Takeshi Murata, who delivers a number of high-gloss still-lifes which include horns that look like guts, a ship inside a Gatorade bottle, ditched Coors Light cans, horror film VHS cassettes, a cat jungle gym, and more.

Wise Blood – “Alarm”



If you heard Wise Blood’s shimmering electronic bedroom-pop song “Alarm” in isolation, you might not expect that song’s video to be a dark, unresolved crime story. But then, Wise Blood has a bit of a history with dark, unresolved crime stories. So enjoy this crisply-filmed, meditative, tense story about an armed robbery’s strange aftermath.

Cody ChesnuTT – “I’ve Been Life”



In the video for “I’ve Been Life,” a searching squelch-funker from his long-in-the-works 2012 sophomore album Landing On A Hundred, the idiosyncratic soul auteur Cody ChesnuTT co-stars with a parade of elaborately masked dancing, fire-spitting guys on stilts. These guys stop traffic when the strut into the Brooklyn street, and that just makes sense; I’d hit the brakes if I saw one, too. Watch the vivid video at Rolling Stone.

Goodie Mob – “I’m Set” (Official Music Video)



Here's the new video for "I'm Set" from Goodie Mob off the album 'Age Against The Machine.' Goodie Mob is: CeeLo Green, Big Gipp, Khujo, T-Mo.

Ariel Pink & Jorge Elbrecht – “Hang On To Life”



A few weeks ago, Ariel Pink teamed up with Jorge Elbrecht, the luxe indie-pop auteur behind projects like Lansing-Dreiden and Violens, to release the weirdly smooth single “Hang On To Life” . Today, the song gets a video, which Elbrecht directed with Alejandro Cardenas, and it’s mostly made up of soft-focus shots of Pink and Elbrecht looking elegantly disheveled. There’s also some slow-motion footage of a yellow lab shaking water off, just to make the “you screwed the pooch” lyric uncomfortably literal.

Celestial Shore – “Valerie”



Brooklyn’s Celestial Shore will release their LP 10x in September. We’ve already heard their lead-off “Valerie,” which as Tom referred to as a, “dazed lurch of an album track.” Now the discordant, hazy cut gets an equally jarring collage of a video.

The Great American Canyon Band – “Lost At Sea” Video



 Matthew Riggieri-directed video, which features a girl’s race to find home and the birds that guide her there

Crocodiles – “Cockroach”



The fuzzed-out San Diego-born garage rockers Crocodiles have a new album called Crimes Of Passion coming out last month, and we posted their first single “Cockroach” a little while back. The song’s brand-new music video starts as an excessively glitchy live-footage clip, but then you notice that frontman Brandon Welchez is using a can of bug spray for a microphone. And then the guy with black undies and a cryptic message scrawled on his chest wanders into the frame, and things get really weird.