David Bowie - “Love Is Lost (James Murphy Remix)” Video

The special three-disc reissue of his great comeback album The Next Day is out next week, and now David Bowie has made a strange, unsettling video for James Murphy’s fucking awesome remix of his “Love Is Lost.” For the video, Bowie pares the massive remix down to a four-minute edit and fills the video with carved wooden faces and unearthly marionettes. Bowie himself is in there, too, both as a quiet presence in a hallway bathroom and as a face projected on another face. 

Son Lux - “Lost It To Trying” (Official Music Video)

Director Jennifer McQuiston Lott choreographed two modern dancers and filmed them flailing in black and white against a swirling spectral background. It only sometimes lives up to the song’s grandeur, but frankly any opportunity to hear “Lost It To Trying” again is an opportunity you should take. Do that below.

Joey Bada$$ - “My Yout” (feat. Maverick Sabre) Video

In the video for “My Yout” from the new Summer Knights EP (not to be confused with the Summer Knights mixtape r), Joey Bada$$ and collaborator Maverick Sabre traipse around St. Lucia, appropriate for a song built on syncopated island riddims. Motion Family directed the clip, which is a vibrantly colorful take on the rapper-goes-to-the-Caribbean trope.

Best Coast - "I Don't Know How" (Official Video)

Here's the reliably sun-drenched new video, "I Don't Know How" from Best Coast. Bethany Cosentino fully inhabits her role of surf-punk Patsy Cline here, belting out the song from the center of an empty pool, while sun beats down and people skateboard around her. It’s a fun video for a pretty song.

Planningtorock – “Welcome”

Planningtorock is a Berlin-based producer of intense, feminist dance music, and she last showed up on this site after she remixed the Knife. Early next year, she’ll release her new album All Love’s Legal. And if the title isn’t enough indication that this album will have a direct and personal message, the simple video for the two-minute intro track “Welcome” should make it clear.

Baio – “Mira” (Official Video)

When he isn’t playing bass with Vampire Weekend, Chris Baio makes architecturally precise dance music under his last name. “Mira,” the title track from Baio’s new EP, is kind of a banger. Its new video is a series of closeups of eyes, lips, and, occasionally, lips painted to look like eyes. With lashes and everything. It’s weird.

Bill Callahan - "Small Plane" (Official Video)

The incisive veteran songwriter Bill Callahan released his new album Dream River last month, and now he’s made his first music video from the album. It’s for “Small Plane,” the same lovely sigh of a song that he played in a community garden for NPR’s cameras. Callahan co-directed the video with Hanly Banks, and it plays as a short silent movie, with title cards and scratchy black-and-white cinematography. It tells the absolutely ridiculous story of two people in love, but with a communication problem that could mess things up for them. I laughed out loud more than once. If you’ve ever wanted to see Callahan’s silent-movie-villain maniacal laugh, that’s it pictured above.

The So So Glos – “All Of The Time” Video

We named the So So Glos’ debut album Blowout in April, and yesterday the band released the music video for the song “All Of The Time.” The So So Glos were born of what is now easily referenced as the “Brooklyn DIY Scene,” but in contrast with their humble origins, the video for “All Of The Time” looks super-polished and it’s totally unexpected compared to the “Wrecking Ball” video that was released earlier this month. “All Of The Time” is a triumphant song about modern apathy — it’s sort-of inspiring, but mostly unnerving.

Devendra Banhart – “Für Hildegard Von Bingen” Video

“Für Hildegard Von Bingen,” one of the best tracks off Devendra Banhart’s new album, was named after the German saint in the Catholic sense, though the new video is concerned with a different idea of that word. The story follows a nun who secretly worships the art world of the city behind the back of the head priest. Her fantasies come to life with superimposed images of her singing with Klaus Nomi, certainly one of the saints of downtown New York in the ’70s. It’s an exquisite looking video, directed by Isaiah Seret and Banhart.

Los Campesinos! – “Avocado, Baby” Video

“It feels like I’m the host of a horrible game show,” sings Gareth Campesinos on the fired-up new Los Campesinos! single “Avocado, Baby.” The beginning of the song’s video finds him doing exactly that, trying to hold it together while acting as the face of an incomprehensible ’70s-style program called The Avocado Show. But things go from bad to worse, as occult forces take over the show. The whole thing, directed by Submarine star Craig Roberts, works in one continuous tracking shot. It does not make a whole lot of sense, but it’s still an impressive achievement.

Young Galaxy – “Privileged Poor” (Official Video)

Young Galaxy put together a really charming collection of songs on Ultramarine earlier this year, and now they have a new video for “Privileged Poor” that captures their sad and sweet music. The Jem Garrad-directed clip could almost be a mash up of Pixar’s Up and The Incredibles as it follows a retired superhero dealing with old age and waning powers. It takes the strange premise seriously too, just take the look of failure on the hero’s face as he fails to even levitate his pills.

Islands – “Wave Forms” (Official Video)

Canadian art-poppers Islands’ video for “Wave Forms,” the first single from their new album Ski Mask, stars Cory Zacharia, the subject of the 2008 documentary Kid Icarus. I don’t know Zacharia’s whole story, so I can’t tell if he’s playing a character or being himself in the video. But we do see him roller-skating across a desert flatland and hanging out with dogs in his trash-strewn backyard, so either way, he strikes me as someone who knows how to have fun. Strike Anywhere directed the video.

The Flaming Lips – “Elephant” (Tame Impala Cover) Video

The Flaming Lips and Tame Impala continue their creative back-and-forth that started with 2012′s Heady Fwends with a video for the Lips’ cover of “Elephant.” They’ve already announced the release of an EP where they’ll cover each other’s songs and this in-studio video is the first official taste of that collaboration. After a successful string of dates along the east coast earlier this fall, the two bands will kick off the first of three west coast shows tonight in LA.

Moonface - "Barbarian" (Official Video)

Today, former Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown guy Spencer Krug releases Julet With Blue Jeans On, the latest album from his Moonface solo project.  The album actually opens with “Barbarian,” a pounding seven-minute voice-and-piano song. The song’s video is made up entirely of archival ’80s footage of three kids staging a dance routine in a backyard while a dog keeps interrupting, and the kid in the red T-shirt is a baby Spencer Krug. It’s all pretty adorable, but there’s an intriguing dissonance when those images are paired with a vast and serious song like this one. Also, I wish I knew what they were originally dancing to. My guess: “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” There’s also some heavy, possibly-symbolic recent-vintage stuff in there, too.

Savages - "Marshal Dear"

Savages’ great debut album Silence Yourself ends with “Marshal Dear,” an uncharacteristically slow, thick, heavy gothed-out dirge of a song. It might represent the best use of saxophone and piano on a postpunk track since the Rapture dropped Echoes a decade ago. And now “Marshal Dear” has a video, a scratchily animated meditation on bombs and factories and the industrialization of death. Gergely Wootsch designed and animated the video.

Justin Timberlake – “TKO” (Official Video)

The slick new video from The 20/20 Experience – 2 Of 2‘s “TKO” features Justin Timberlake in a kitchen sex scene (with model/actress/Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keough) that doesn’t end well. Spoiler alert: she ties JT to the back of her truck and drives it off a cliff. Ryan Reichenfeld directs, from a story he co-wrote with Timberlake.

Major Lazer – “Jet Blue Jet” (feat. Leftside, GTA, Razz & Biggy) Video

Major Lazer have a rep for over-the-time, bright-colored wacky visuals, from their work with Eric Wareheim to their recent Robocop-referencing clip for “Scare Me.” The video for “Jet Blue Jet” maintains the color palette, but sticks to a much simpler theme, namely tattooed girls — including former White Girl Mob member Lil’ Debbie — taking long pulls from blunts and blowing billows of smoke into their air in slo-mo shots. If you’re into certain parts of saucier Tumblr, this video is for you.

Julia Holter - "Horns Surrounding Me" (Official Video)

The avant-popper Julia Holter has already made videos for three of the tracks from Loud City Song, the album she released earlier this year: for “World,” for “In The Green Wild,” and for “This Is A True Heart.” Now she’s got another one, for the tense and skronky “Horns Surrounding Me,” and it’s a dark and tough-to-parse tone poem about dark city streets and abandoned theaters. Angus Borsos directs, and it’s “based on a concept by” Nite Jewel’s Ramona Gonzalez.

Okkervil River – “Stay Young” (OfficialVideo)

The Silver Gymnasium, the new LP from the Austin band Okkervil River, is a concept album about the New Hampshire town where frontman Will Sheff grew up. With the new video for the gently rollicking single “Stay Young,” director Sean Dunne filmed in Claremont, New Hampshire, near Sheff’s hometown. In the clip, he focuses on a part of New England culture that you don’t often hear about: The kids in nowhere towns who get their kicks by tearassing through the woods on dirtbikes and ATVs and snowmobiles. It’s an oddly beautiful, seriously fun video.

ScHoolboy Q – “Banger (Moshpit)”

Directed by Jerome D. Check it out below.

Milosh – “Slow Down” (Official Video)

Milosh is the singer for Rhye, and he’s also got his own solo album coming out. The lady in the video is the actress Alexa Nikolas, his wife. The entire video is, more or less, a loving tribute to her face, and that’s just about the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.

Dirty Projectors – “Impregnable Question” Video

Just as Swing Lo Magellan was a folk album with the surreal little touches that Dirty Projectors bring to all their music, their Adam Newport-Berra-directed video for “Impregnable Question” is sweet, pastoral, and just a little bit strange. It was shot over five days in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, and the band says this is the final video to be made for the album.

Kirin J Callinan – “Landslide” Video

It’s a simple video, but what might have seemed gimmicky becomes much more as a result of Callinan’s performance. Hanging upside down over water, with his feet out of frame, the whole world looks like it’s been flipped. It’s a striking enough image, but again it’s Callinan’s performance that makes this video so impressive.


Director: Vincenzi Vandella
Camera: Greg Blakey, Andrew Ferguson
Producer: Anita Spooner
Grading: Chris Tomkins
Kirin Riggers: Mahmood Fazal, Tim Everist, Jarrod Quarrel, Brian Edwards, Andrew Szekeres, Zephyr Marama, Tim Hoey, Ellen Spooner.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – “Mottai-Nightland”

There might not be a single pop artist on earth who does convulsive, euphoric, terrifying what-the-fuckery quite like this lady. I am legitimately worried that those skullface fuckers will haunt my dreams.

Washed Out - "All I Know" (Official Music Video)

Washed Out put out one of the first great albums of this year, so maybe it’s fitting that we get this video as we close in on the final months of 2013. “All I Know”‘s found-footage style video, directed by Daniel Kragh-Jacobsen, starts with the uncomfortable exchange of two guys discussing his ex-girlfriend. It’s the sort of drunken, late night bitterness people go through and don’t often want seen. What follows is a series of random events: driving around, hanging out with girls, getting drunk, that builds to a sort of conclusion that’s as pathetic as it is scary. It doesn’t make you feel very good watching it, in spite of “All I Know”‘s prettiness, but as the cameraman points out in the beginning it does capture something very “human emotion,” no matter how ugly.

Drake – “Hold On, We’re Going Home (Rick Ross Remix)” Video

rrrrr

 The video for Ross’s remix, from director Chris Le Touche, finds Ross rapping in what looks like the catacombs of an arena, and it also follows some guy, in reverse, as he travels from hotel to subway to taxi.

I Break Horses – “Faith” Video

Sweden’s I Break Horses captured our attention with their shoegaze-y debut Hearts, but, as evidenced by the synth-pop-leaning cut “Denial,” are now ready to build on that sound for something new. With “Faith,” the Stockholm duo leave that softer side behind for a much more charged electronic sound. They’ve delivered it via a black-and-white cut directed by Magnus Härdner.

I Break Horses – “Faith” Video

Sweden’s I Break Horses captured our attention with their shoegaze-y debut Hearts, but, as evidenced by the synth-pop-leaning cut “Denial,” are now ready to build on that sound for something new. With “Faith,” the Stockholm duo leave that softer side behind for a much more charged electronic sound. They’ve delivered it via a black-and-white cut directed by Magnus Härdner.

Paul McCartney - "Queenie Eye" (Official Video) (Feat. Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, So Many Famous People)

Paul McCartney is probably going to be the most famous person in the room wherever he goes, and his new video for “Queenie Eye,” a chugging rocker from his new album New, seems like an attempt to test that hypothesis. In the video, we see McCartney head into Abbey Road to lay down a track, and the room slowly fills with famous people: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Kate Moss, Tom Ford, Tracey Ullman, people I should probably recognize but don’t because I was too distracted by Chris Pine’s Rasta hat. All of these people act exactly the way you’d expect them to if they were at a party where Paul McCartney was playing; check out monastic emo Sean Penn! McCartney’s son-in-law Simon Aboud directs.

Throwing Muses – “Sunray Venus” Video

The reunited old-timey college-rock trio Throwing Muses are getting set to release Purgatory/Paradise, their new combination album and art book, and now they’ve made a video for the driving first single “Sunray Venus.” Or they’ve posted it like it’s a video. Really, though, it’s more of an exceptionally arty lyric video, with a few intentionally-wrong words floating through kaleidoscopic images of doll heads, guns, food, and cowboy boots. The best reason to watch it: It’s another chance to hear the song, which rules. Orrin Anderson directs.

Arctic Monkeys - “One For The Road” (Official Video)

“One For The Road” is a chugging, sinuous rocker from the new Arctic Monkeys album AM. Its new video is a crisp, cinematic black-and-white affair, and it has the members of the band dressing like they’re in the Rat Pack and piloting enormous pieces of farm equipment across vast rural expanses. I have no idea why any of this should look badass, but it absolutely does, and it builds to a nicely rocking finale. Focus Creeps direct, which should not be a surprise, since few directors make videos this assured.

Symmetry – “The Hunt” (Official Video)

Johnny Jewel’s side project Symmetry has finally re-released their debut promo The Messenger after a two-year gap since its brief initial release in fall 2011. Back in April, Symmetry issued a video for “Streets Of Fire,” and now they’ve unveiled a video for the album’s final track, “The Hunt,” with flashing clips from ’70s and ’80s advertisements. Jewel’s label, Italians Do It Better, have issued a limited amount of the promo on clear vinyl, available here. Jewel has remained in the forefront of the house-electro scene with his main projects Chromatics and Glass Candy, and The Messenger delivers a similar hazy, drug-induced delirium sound.

Beach Fossils – “Generational Synthetic” (Official Video)

The fizzy, jangly Brooklyn indie-poppers Beach Fossils released their sophomore album Clash The Truth way back in February, but they’re just now getting around to making a video for first single “Generational Synthetic,” which maybe speaks to the whole “generation apathetic” thing they’re singing about. The clip appears to be footage of band dudes running around city streets, but it’s so overloaded with staticy lo-fi camera tricks that it looks like a scrambled cable channel from 1985. You don’t really know what you’re looking at most of the time. Pierce McGarry directs.

The Besnard Lakes – “Color Yr Lights In” (Official Video) (NSFW)

Back in April, Montreal natives the Besnard Lakes, released their fourth album, Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO. Today, the band has released a video for album track “Color Yr Lights In.” The moody video features a man on the verge of a mental breakdown who deals with his misery through a series of self-destructive behaviors, including hitting himself, picking up prostitutes, breaking into cars, and lots of chain smoking. The Besnard Lakes — husband-wife duo Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, Kevin Laing, and Richard White — create a comforting ethereal atmosphere that cradles the lyrics. As the drums and heavier guitar come in for the first chorus, they supplement Lasek and Goreas’s harmonized vocals. The video ends with a naked cathartic leap into a community pool, where its subject seems to achieve momentary peace.

Omar Souleyman – “Warni Warni” (OfficialVideo)

Omar Souleyman — per NPR, “the hottest Syrian speaker-slayer at work in the West” — releases his Four Tet-produced Wenu Wenu today. To mark the occasion he’s also released director Cali Thornhill DeWitt’s video for Wenu track “Warni Warni” in which he dances goofily in front of global monuments including the pyramids and the Arc de Triomphe, stands on top of a moving minivan, presides over a massive concert and a raging rooftop party, sits on a staircase next to video projections of bald eagles and elephants, smokes cigarettes, and generally looks like a badass. Enjoy all seven body-rocking, keyboard-soloing minutes of it below.

Jim James – “State Of The Art (A.E.I.O.U.)” (Official Video)

Many months ago, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James opened Regions Of Light And Sound Of God, his first-ever proper solo album, with a tingly psych-soul song called “State Of The Art (A.E.I.O.U.).” Over the summer, he sang the song in a memorable Letterman appearance. And today, he shares the song’s video. The production company Clean White Lines won a concept, and they’re the ones responsible for the video, which tells us of the desolate urban wanderings of a man with an old-fashioned television set for a head. Life, we learn, is lonely out here for a TV-head.

Dean Wareham – “Love Is Colder Than Death” Video

Dean Wareham released “Love Is Colder Than Death” via 7-inch over the summer and now it’s getting a second release via his brand new EP Emancipated Hearts (which boasts album art based on Nietzsche’s emotional, uplifting book of maxims The Gay Science). The former Galaxie 500 and Luna frontman has also delivered a Lucas Celler-directed clip for the track, which features the singer in somber moving-portraits with watercolors-like streams dripping atop them.

Azealia Banks ft. Pharrell - "ATM Jam" (Official Video)

You have to wonder if Azealia Banks hadn’t exhausted all her amnesty in the music community at large, then maybe her Pharrell-produced “ATM Jam” would have carved out a little spot for itself among Skateboard P’s monumental summer. I’m not putting it in the same category as “Blurred Lines” or “Get Lucky,” but perhaps it could have gotten a little bit more love than a few blog posts before disappearing after its release in July. The day-glo video sets it up to get a second life, giving proof once again that Banks can rap her butt off and look extremely well-styled while doing it.

Swearin’ – “Dust In The Gold Sack” (Official video)

The sunny Philadelphia-based fuzz-punkers Swearin’, new video from Swearin' for the first single taken from their second album, "Surfing Strange".

Minor Alps – “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands” Video

The latest single from Minor Alps, the team of Juliana Hatfield and Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws, is called “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands.” It’s a breezy little ditty that fits fine into the revival of the sort of ’90s alt-rock Hatfield helped to carve out in the first place, but graced with that pleasantly thoughtful early aughts Barsuk touch that Nada Surf all but personifies. The video is quite literal: Lots of hands busy themselves with such tasks as flipping channels, chucking rocks, setting fires, and rocking out. It’s nice.

Hunx & His Punx – “You Think You’re Tough” Video

Back in July, Hunx & His Punx released a new full-length, Street Punk via Hardly Art. Following the “video trilogy” the band already released, Hunx has now shared a video for “You Think You’re Tough,” directed by Dan Shaw, brother of Shannon Shaw from Shannon And The Clams.

Only Real - "Get It On" (Official Video)

Only Real is a young London bedroom-recording type who lazily half-raps over gently-glimmering fuzz-guitar indie stuff that he puts together himself. In his “Get It On” video, we see Only Real, a girl, and some friends doing the fun, dumb stuff that you do when you don’t have any particular place to go: Jumping into rivers, popping off fireworks, giving bike-assisted piggyback rides. There is a lot of smiling in this video. Only Real co-directed it himself with Messrs.

Yeasayer - Glass of the Microscope (Official Video)

Yeasayer filmed the video for “Glass Of The Microscope,” the spacey track that ends their 2012 album Fragrant World, at Leiden University, an old medical-research university in the Netherlands, where the scientist Antoine van Leeuwenhoek developed an early version of the microscope in the 17th century. In the video, the members of Yeasayer don lab coats, peer through microscopes, walk past shelves of preserved animals, and interact with various modern-dancing extras. According to director Ruben van Leer, there’s a storyline about how the Yeasayer guys are scientists working to find a cure for a mysterious epidemic, but you won’t necessarily get that from watching the video, which seems mostly concerned with exploring the intersection between “science stuff” and “trippiness.”

Atoms For Peace – “Before Your Very Eyes” (Official Video)

Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace just shared their animated video for “Before Your Very Eyes,” the sputtering groove that opens their album Amok, and it’s a trippy one. In the video, some version of Yorke appears as a crumbling statue adrift in a psychedelic, undulating CGI river. And then a bunch of stuff happens, which you will have to figure out for yourself. My daughter, climbing on my head as I write this, has already pronounced the video “too silly,” but you can watch it below and make up your own mind.

Jorge Elbrecht featuring Caroline Polachek - "I.V. Aided Dreams" (Official Video)

Earlier this year Jorge Elbrecht (of Lansing-Dreiden and Violens) gave us two collaborations with Ariel Pink. His new song is another in the series of collaborations, this time with Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek. It’s a dark, dense track built around aggressive samples of screams and prickling synths. Polachek’s usually gorgeous voice here adds an extra layer of creepiness before the coda cuts in, washing away all of the fear and leaving a gorgeous drone. The video, directed by Cara Stricker, reinforces the music with a final image as striking as the music’s closing moments.

Woman’s Hour – “Darkest Place” (Official Video)

“Darkest Place,” the new single from Woman’s Hour, is a pretty and synthy indie-pop song, but its lyrics are about the deepest parts of relationship frustration. The song’s new video, directed by Broomberg &  Chanarin, takes its visual metaphor to a stark and tough-to watch extreme. The entire video is a black-and-white closeup on a woman’s face as she sings the song and a pair of male hands grab her and, as far as I can tell, try to pry her eyes open.

Crystal Antlers - “Licorice Pizza” (Official Video)

Director/DP: Michael Reich
Editor: Forrest Borie
AC/Gaffer: Jacob Gilbert
Produced by: NORMAL.TV
Pizza CG: Mike Pinkney
Skull Puppetry: Jonny Bell

Crystal Antlers released their LP Nothing Is Real today and have delivered a video for its single “Licorice Pizza” along with it. The clip does not solve the mystery of what is licorice pizza and oddly enough features some pepperoni pies festooned with Froot Loops and money. A candy 12″ does make an appearance, however, so it does have something in common with some of the pizza featured in the clip.

School Of Night – “Fire Escape” Video (NSFW)

School Of Night, the solo project of Antlers frontman Darby Cicci, releases its debut EP today, and to mark the occasion, a video for EP track “Fire Escape” has emerged. The clip features multiple twirling women, including one who’s topless. It also redefines the concept of “fire escape” to mean not escaping from fire but escaping by fire. There seems to be some kind of woman-scorned revenge narrative going on too. Cicci himself directed the video, which stars Colin Donnell and Taylor Lashae.

Upset – “You And I” (Official Video)

Upset’s released a music video for “You And I” off of their forthcoming debut due out at the end of the month. Upset has already proved that they can write super-short, super-catchy pop-punk songs, but the “You and I” video proves that the trio also has a rad sense of humor. In the “You And I” video, you can watch super rich kids (played by comedians Whitmer Thomas, Clay Tatum, Budd Diaz, Rodney Berry, James Pumphrey, Jess Lane, and Chris Thayer) drunkenly roam the streets of Los Angeles pretending to be broke. The clip, which is directed by Sean O’Connor, is a parody (mockery?) of Soul Asylum’s video for the 1993 hit “Runaway Train.”

The Paper Kites – “Young” (Official Music Video)

The picture above, or any still image for that matter, doesn’t quite get across what’s going on this video for “Young,” by the Paper Kites (who recently got attention for their cover of Disclosure’s “Help Me Lose My Mind”). Cutting through different shots of peoples faces at a blinding speed, you start to pick up on little details almost subliminally. The faces change, but the mouths sing in time with the song creating a pretty cool animated effect. Watch the Darcy Prendergast-directed video.

Destruction Unit – “The Holy Ghost” (Official Music Video)

Destruction Unit, the louder-than-hell Arizona psych-rock band, just made a video for “The Holy Ghost,” a mythic guitar freakout from their recent album Deep Trip. With its murky black-and-white cinematography, its out-of-focus blurriness, and its outdoor-campfire setting, the whole thing feels almost black-metal in tone. But the first thing you notice in the video is the drummer’s Brian Jonestown Massacre T-shirt, so rest assured it’s not trying that hard to be black metal. Daniel Pelissier and Spoiler directed the video.

Joey Bada$$ – “Hillary Swank” Video

On his recent Summer Knights mixtape, the Brooklyn boom-bap revivalist Joey Bada$$ found himself falling into something of a stylistic rut. But at least visually, Joey and his collaborators keep things shifting around in his new video for the Summer Knights track “Hillary Swank.” The clip, directed by Alex Lill, switches visual perspective from crackling static to crisp photorealism to Hype Williams hyper-reality and location from a cramped office to a festival backstage. Joey’s late friend Capital Steez also makes something of a heartbreaking cameo, via old footage, at the end.

James Blake – “Life Round Here (Remix Feat. Chance The Rapper)” Video

Last month, James Blake and Chance The Rapper joined forces for a hypnotic, tingly, generally excellent remix of Blake’s own Overgrown track “Life Round Here.” It was our favorite song of that week, and, since Blake and Chance have said that they’re making more music together, a preview of some potentially-amazing things to come. And now Nabil, probably the best music-video director currently working, has made a powerfully atmospheric black-and-white video for the remix. In the clip, Blake and Chance go on a foreboding, racially charged lowrider drive through the deep woods.

Prince – “Breakfast Can Wait” (Official Video)

Prince doesn’t show up in director Danielle Curiel’s video for his morning-sex funk jam “Breakfast Can Wait,” and neither, for that matter, does Dave Chappelle. Instead, the video has a foxy young couple using the medium of massive and artfully-lit choreographed dance throwdown to reveal how much they want to bang each other. There’s also a lovely young lady who dresses as Prince, complete with painted-on mustache.

MellowHigh – “Yu” Video

MellowHigh is the Odd Future duo of resident crew stoners Hodgy Beats and Domo Genesis. Their new video for the new track “Yu,” which the group directed themselves, is a bizarre spilt-screen affair that never comes together. Domo dances with some girls, Hodgy goofs around with a fat suit and old-man makeup, and producer Left Brain hangs out at a party while a girl bounces on a trampoline. I have no idea why this exists, but it’s below.

Pusha T – “Pain” (Feat. Future) Video

Pusha T released his truly excellent solo album My Name Is My Name earlier this week, and he’s already made stark and minimal music videos for many of its tracks: “Numbers On The Boards,” “King Push,” “Nosetalgia,” “Sweet Serenade.” Now he’s got one for the buzzing, clinical Future collab “Pain.” Future isn’t in this one; instead, it’s mostly stark black-and-white images of Pusha, backlit in silhouette, with stock footage of civil rights struggles and arrests mixed in.

Deap Vally – “Walk Of Shame” (Official Video)

Deap Valley’s “Walk Of Shame” takes the titular trek and turns it into a sort of triumphant anthem. What starts as a “walk of shame” becomes a “walk of pride,” and it’s the latter Tyler Shields captures in his music video. It makes sense that members Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards’ list of their favorite bands includes Zep and the Stooges (they tellingly list Son House first); the song is a sex-positive stomper and they sell it perfectly here.

Janelle Monáe – “PrimeTime” (Feat. Miguel) Video

Janelle Monáe’s Miguel duet “PrimeTime” is one of the best tracks on her The Electric Lady, our Album Of The Week early last month. Now it has a stylized, high-concept video that depicts the R&;B stars’ meet-cute in a sexy dystopia…

PrimeTime is a love story based on the early adventures of Cindi Mayweather (Janelle Monáe) and her first love Joey Vice (Miguel.) The Emotion Picture gives a glimpse at Cindi’s humble beginnings as a “cyber-server” at the Electric Sheep nightclub, a syn bar serving high-class “show droids” to the rich and lonely in a dangerous section of Metropolis known as Slop City. Incidentally, the innovative cybersoul music played at the club directly impacted Cindi, and she began singing and performing her own innovative compositions a short time after quitting this assignment. In addition, Cindi became determined to change the public perception of what an electric lady could be, dream and aspire to after working in the dismal conditions at the club.

of Montreal – “Fugitive Air” (Official Video)

of Montreal have delivered a clip for Lousy With Sylvianbriar lead single “Fugitive Air.” The arty Athens indie vets enlisted Kevin Barnes’ wife Nina, who previously worked on “Sails Hermaphroditic,” to direct and she’s culled together a combination of deliberately-shot footage, as well as more candid material. It’s also a wee bit unsafe for work.

SZA – “Teen Spirit” (Official Video)

SZA - Teen Spirit
Directed by: Fredo Tovar, Scott Fleishman & SZA

First lady of TDE, New Jersey-born siren SZA, has released a video for her Wondagurl-produced song “Teen Spirit.” The visuals line up nicely with the meditative, somber song, featuring the alt-R&B-crooner singing in a post-debauch room filled with party ephemera, clutching maybe the cutest puppy ever in a music video, as well as a bathtub wielding an enormous plastic machine-gun toy and wearing a Westside Connection T-shirt (a perfect parable for her Black Hippy compatriots).

Bruce Springsteen – “Dream Baby Dream” (Suicide Cover) Video

One of the coolest fun facts about Bruce Springsteen: He was an early fan and patron of the New York electro-punk duo Suicide, and he’s covered their devotional hymn “Dream Baby Dream” many times over the years. (Suicide were also a big influence on his great stark acoustic album Nebraska.) And now that Springsteen and his E Street Band are wrapping up their massive two-year Wrecking Ball tour, Springsteen has posted a letter thanking the many fans who came out to the show and a video for a newly-recorded “Dream Baby Dream” cover. The video consists entirely of live-show footage from the tour, but with an interesting twist: Almost all the footage is of fans, of their faces, and of the very real rapture that they’re registering. (As someone who saw Springsteen on this past tour, I can only imagine that my face looked something like that too.) The result: Perhaps one of the only times you’ll get choked up listening to a Suicide song. Thom Zimny made the video, and you can watch.

Le1f – “Hush BB” Video

The New York club-rapper Le1f has made two of 2013′s most striking mixtapes: The riotous Fly Zone and the insular, squelchy Tree Houses. And now, for the Tree Houses track “Hush BB,” he and director Alex da Corte have made an erotic dream-logic music video, in which a camera languidly circles Le1f and a lingerie-clad woman as they switch places in a bedroom. I have no idea what, if anything, it’s supposed to mean, but it’s still a compelling vision.

The Blow – “From The Future” Video

Earlier this month, the latest incarnation of the Blow (that is Khaela Maricich with long-time live member Melissa Dyne) released a self-titled album that has some of the most interesting electronic elements, as they seem to be ones that the duo invented themselves. It’s why we gave “From The Future” a 5 Best Songs designation when it was released in September and we see the same creativity running through its video — minimal action via the flipping of book pages, but still somehow extremely romantic, even when some of the images are just hands.

Albert Hammond Jr. – “St. Justice” (Official Music Video) (NSFW)

Earlier this week, Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. released his solo EP AHJ, and now he’s got a video for the rippling early single “St. Justice.” Director Laurent Briet‘s elegant black-and-white clip tells the story of a relationship coming together and falling apart, as it follows Hammond spending time with a ladyfriend who is apparently no Strokes fan. There’s a sex scene way more explicit than what you’ll usually see from a rock star on Hammond’s level, and there’s also a brutally and uncomfortably real breakup scene.

Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings - “Retreat!” (Official Music Video)

Retro-soul force of nature Sharon Jones and her Dap-Kings had planned on releasing their new album Give The People What They Want back in August, but just as things were ramping up, Jones was diagnosed with cancer, and all those plans went on hold. According to a press release, Jones has since undergone a successful surgery and is still going through treatment, and now the album is once again coming out. Jones shows up in animated form in director Lizzi Akana‘s video for first single “Retreat!” In the video, Jones does battle with some nefarious cartoon wolves.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Commercial With Lionel Messi (Watch Kids Sing Lorde’s “Royals”)

This is where I’d say “Lorde, Lorde!” if the “e” wasn’t silent. Lorde’s “Royals” has been just about everywhere lately, and now we’ve officially moved on to the Kidz Bop version. Well, not quite — kids do sing the song in this video, but it’s a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 commercial starring four-time defending FIFA Player of the Year Lionel Messi. No sign of the New Zealand teen queen, though. Here’s the plot:

A mysterious stranger arrives in a low income neighborhood and captures the imaginations of the children who live there. He is “The Developer” and the children view him with a deep suspicion.

I wanted to hate this, but both the kids and Messi are so irrepressibly charming that I couldn’t help grinning, and the kids do the song justice. It does have a certain nursery rhyme quality to it.

Luke Temple – “Florida” (Official Video)

Watch the video for the cocaine protesting “Florida”, directed by Kris Moyes.

Young Thug & PeeWee Longway “Loaded” Video

Directed by Goodwin (@GoodwinWinsgood)

Produced by Big K (@BigKBeatz)

Flatbush Zombies – “Death” Video

Brooklyn drug-rap group Flatbush Zombies released their Better Off Dead mixtape last month, and now they’ve made a typically grim and theatrical video for the mixtape track “Death.” For this one, directors TONE and Vinny Picone have made a fake retro horror movie, replete with chainsaws, masks, and remote cabins off in the woods somewhere. The most unsettling moment in the video, though, isn’t any of the implied onscreen violence; it’s group member Meechy Darko making what might be rap’s first ill-advised Boston Marathon bombing joke.

Camera Obscura – “Troublemaker” Video

“Troublemaker,” a song from the Scottish indie-poppers Camera Obscura, is a pleasantly jangling ditty that seems to call out for one of those videos that’s all amber-hued shots of young people staring flirtily at each other. Instead, director Blair Young has made a spot-on tribute to the low-budget, mostly-incomprehensible British sci-fi TV shows of the ’80s. 

Eminem - “Survival” (Official Video) (Call of Duty: Ghosts Soundtrack)

In the video for his Call Of Duty-affiliated single “Survival,” Eminem! Is! Still! Screaming! But the veteran Detroit MC’s aggression sounds a little more like classic Em than the exceptionally “Berzerk” persona he’s been showcasing lately. Production-wise, it’s more of the guitar-laden Rick Rubin old-school treatment we’ve come to expect from this The Marshall Mathers LP 2 era. Visually, it’s fittingly gritty, casting Em against a cityscape rife with stray dogs and graffiti.

J Mascis & Sharon Van Etten – “Prisoners” Video

J Mascis and Sharon Van Etten put a cover out of John Denver’s “Prisoner” this year, and it now comes with this excellent Funny Or Die music video. In the world of this video, it seems like people can just be John Denver in the same way some people on Adult Swim’s excellent Children’s Hospital are just born clowns. So here, a lonely John Denver man (Jon Wurster) and John Denver lady (Aimee Mann) who spends her work days surfing John Denver dating sites find each other and fall in love. It’s completely insane, but also pretty sweet, while the song is just plain sweet.

Danny Brown – “Side B (Dope Song)” (Official Video)

Danny Brown’s ridiculously great new album Old is out today, and it comes separated into two halves, opening with relatively introspective boom-bap on the first “side” and then moving into manic drug anthems. The second side opens with “Dope Song,” the song where Brown raps about his drug-dealing past and about how he’s not going to rap about his drug-dealing past anymore. In director Laurent Briet‘s video, Brown goes on a hallucinatory Cadillac ride through his burnt-out Detroit hometown.

David Bowie - "Sound And Vision 2013" Official Lyric Video & Xperia Z TV Ad

Earlier this year, Sony used a new remix of David Bowie’s “Sound And Vision,” from his 1977 undisputed-classic album Low, in an ad for their new Xperia Z smartphone. Remixer Sonjay Prabhakar reworked the song from its original tapes, stripping it down to nothing more than voice and piano. And enough people liked the ad that an extended (though still less than two-minute) version of the remix is out on the internet now. It’s weird hearing Berlin-era Bowie get the unplugged treatment, since the prophetic use of studio-sound was a huge part of what made those records important. But “Sound And Vision” is a song with a certain uncanny power, and it loses none of it in this context. Listen to the extended remix and watch the ad below.

Xperia™ Z TV Ad - Sound, vision, colour, detail from Sony. Featuring music from David Bowie

Pure Bathing Culture - “Dream The Dare” (Official Music Video)

Pure Bathing Culture have released a video for their Moon Tides cut “Dream The Dare.” The clip features a stop-motion animation landscape that crafts a world that is almost entirely metallic, subverting PBC’s of-nature sonics. Check it out below.

Joanna Gruesome – “Sugarcrush” (Official Video)

You could try and make a mental list of all the ridiculous shit that appears in the video for “Sugarcrush” (directed by Ewan Jones Morris and Casey Raymond), one of the best tracks to come from the fuzz-punk band Joanna Gruesome. I tried, and failed miserably, because somewhere between the giant pizza flying through the awkwardly rendered tube that looks almost like one of the bonus stages from Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and the moment when a leather jacket-clad Hitler shoots by on a motorcycle next to a huge mozzarella stick, there just gets to be too much crazy stuff going on here to keep up. Don’t fight it, don’t question, just sit back and enjoy.

Tyler, The Creator – “Tamale” Video

Directed By Wolf Haley.
DP: Luis Ponch.
Video Production:Tara Razavi.

Additional Vocals By Tallulah Willis And Syd Bennett

Poliça – “Warrior Lord” (Official Music Video)

Minneapolis synthpoppers Poliça’s video for “Warrior Lord,” a song from their forthcoming album Shulamith, is about two girls swimming in a lake. Or, anyway, that’s all it’s about on paper. In practice, the video, from directors Isaac Gale and David Jensen, exists entirely in a rhapsodic dreamworld of bubbles and reflected sunbeams and floating strands of hair.

Pusha T – “Sweet Serenade” (Feat. Chris Brown) Video

Tomorrow, Clipse rapper Pusha T releases his absolutely nasty new solo album My Name Is My Name. I’ve been doing it, thanks to his hard and minimal videos for “Nosetalgia” and “King Push.” Now, he’s got another clip, this one for the slithery Chris Brown collab “Sweet Serenade.” The entire video takes place on the beach, but it’s one of those beaches where fireballs and stripper-poles are everywhere. Please do not let the presence of Chris Brown keep you from enjoying this one, since the song is great and the video’s not bad.

Lulu James - “Sweetest Thing” (Official Video)

Lulu James has released a video for her most recent single “Sweetest Thing.” Like her clips for “Closer” and “Step By Step” before this, the video features James in different avant garde costuming, solo-dancing throughout.

Rihanna - "Pour It Up" (Explicit) (NSFW)

Music video by Rihanna performing Pour It Up (Explicit). © 2013

Pixies – “Andro Queen” (Official Video)

Last month, the reunited alt-rock heroes Pixies returned with EP-1, their first release of new music in 22 years. They introduced the EP with a video for their cranked-up single “Indie Cindy,” and now they’ve made a video for another of the EP’s tracks. Director (and Dig filmmaker) Ondi Timoner‘s clip for the strummy opener “Andro Queen” is a hazy, swirling fever dream about a band of people in animal masks and a pretty girl dancing to their music, or something. It probably bears mentioning that the people, even with the masks on, do not look like the actual Pixies.

AlunaGeorge – “Best Be Believing” (Official Video)

The London duo AlunaGeorge released Body Music, their debut album of sleek and futuristic R&B, a few months ago, and they’ve been kicking around internet circles for more than a year now. But their new video for the album track “Best Be Believing” might put singer AlunaGeorge’s dizzy charisma to its greatest test yet. The video essentially casts her in the Jack Nicholson role in a four-minute remake of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, as she plays a lady whose mere presence throws a severe mental ward into disarray. I’m pretty sure that means the girl who pop-locks during the Rorschach test is Danny DeVito.

Starwalker – “Bad Weather” (Official Video)

“Bad Weather,” the first single from the Air/Bang Gang team-up Starwalker, the video a gorgeously shot clip from director Jeaneen Lund & Saevar Gudmundsson. Despite the spacey band name, the “Bad Weather” visuals are distinctly earthbound, following Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Bardi Johansson across a dusky, dusty mountain landscape inhabited by druids with black balloons. Then again, it’s all so creepy that it might be going down on another planet for all we know.

Pusha T – “Nosetalgia” (Feat. Kendrick Lamar) Video

The new video for My Name Is My Name standout “Nosetalgia” finds Pusha T and Kendrick Lamar strutting down a Compton street at night in a single black-and-white shot. Simple concept, but a magnetic performance.

Ryan Hemsworth - "Against A Wall" feat. Lofty305 (Music Video)

Ryan Hemsworth has finally reached a point where he’s getting credit for his creative remixes and productions, and now he has his first album coming out soon. “Against A Wall” paired the producer with rapper Lofty305, and the full album promises more of these vocalist collaborations. The video for that first track came out today, a rhythmically edited black and white portrait of a girl doing various things from chewing Big League Chew to drinking Pokari Sweat (which despite the weird name is crazy delicious). Intercut that with shots of driving at night and some ambiguous subtitles, and you have a video as elegantly mashed up as one of Hemsworth’s old mixes.

Jackson Scott – “Sandy” (Official Video)

Jackson Scott has just released a “Sandy” video as woozy and off kilter as the song. It follows a bunch of young partiers as they drink, dance, and screw around with things in the house. Shot by Tyler Floro with unbalanced camera work that quickly makes the person watching it feel as faded as the folks at the party. The sort of elephant in the room regarding this song, and especially video, is it’s relation to Sandy Hook. Some people have already taken issue with the song’s lyrics, “”Little kids sitting all around / wishing they were sound asleep again” being paired with a video of kids partying and dancing. Below you can watch the video and read what Scott said of it in a recent interview with NPR:

One thing going through my head was this concept [that] the kids the song is speaking about are never going to get past their very young childhood. They’re never going to be happy teenagers, mindlessly having fun or partying. I’d say that would be a big element of it. Another element is this idea of when something really bad happens, it sounds odd, but the world just goes on. I think you could either be really cynical or optimistic about the concept that if something bad happens, people are going to think about it for a while, and then they’ll go back to their normal lives, they’ll go back to partying with friends, going to work, all that typical stuff. I think the video, I would hope, would further the odd vibe of the song I was trying to convey, in terms of a certain meaninglessness.

Lonnie Holley – “From The Other Side Of The Pulpit” (Feat. Bradford Cox & Cole Alexander)

Outsider artist Lonnie Holley, 63, put out a new album recently that got some blog attention due to one 13-plus minute track featuring Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Cole Alexander of Black Lips. It was a sprawling song that may have baffled some listeners, but the video may make it easier to take it. It’s nothing fancy — it simply documents the three recording and playing — but it makes the song even more enjoyable. Once you see the passion in Holley’s delivery, his raw voice becomes more understandable, the clanking percussion works better when you see the visual of how they made it — tossing sawblade, weights, and other chunks of metal into a wheel barrow. Cox and Alexander essentially work as session musicians here, but it’s for the better that way.

Cults - "High Road" (Official Video)

The new LP from New York pop duo Cults, Static, is out October 15 via Columbia. Now, Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin have shared the video for "High Road", which channels some slick, black-and-white, late-60s psychedelia.

Palma Violets – “”Rattlesnake Highway”" Video

Palma Violets put out an especially great music video back in April for “We Found Love,” and they’ve just put out a new video for “Rattlesnake Highway.” This one syncs up footage of what looks like evangelical church services (along with plenty of snakes) and visuals of the band thrashing about on stage.

High Highs – “A Real Hero” (College & Electric Youth Cover) Video

Though it might be blasphemy for some to picture College’s “A Real Hero” soundtracking ANYTHING other than Ryan Gosling driving through the night, but the video to High Highs recent majestic cover of the track puts it in a different and enjoyable new context. In a brightly lit forest, a group of people swim, laugh, smoke, and most impressively, dive off tall rocks into the water. All of this is captured in exquisitely shot slow motion, which lets each person hang in the air of their dive until they’re almost floating.

Into It. Over It. - "No Amount Of Sound" (Official Video)

“No Amount Of Sound” is a Death Cab-reminiscent slow burn from the new album Intersections, though the video is drenched with enough water to snuff out the smoldering.

Angel Haze – “Echelon (It’s My Way)” Video

We don’t yet know when Angel Haze’s album Dirty Gold will come out, but her synth-rap single “Echelon (It’s My Way)”, and now it’s got a video, too. In the clip, directed by Skinny, Angel hangs out with what looks like the cast of a straight-to-video Spring Breakers single, rapping hard while her buddies pop motorcycle wheelies and dance in kiddie pools and rob bodegas. It is a knowingly ridiculous piece of filmmaking.

Fuck Buttons – “Brainfreeze” Video

The British duo Fuck Buttons called their excellent most recent album Slow Focus, and their new video for the pounding, blaring, generally unrelenting “Brainfreeze” sure doesn’t bother too much with focus. The video might be a little easier to watch, though, if it were more unfocused. Andrew Hung, one half of the duo, directed the video himself, and it consists of a series of nightmarish portraits of human faces that have been distorted, through special effects, into alien shapes.

Lorde - "Royals" Video (US Version)

Music video by Lorde performing Royals. (C) 2013 Universal Music NZ Ltd.

The So So Glos – “Wrecking Ball” Video

The So So Glos’ new music video for “Wrecking Ball” is seriously something to behold. Brendhan Bowers directed this short film starring the band, who does get around to playing the fantastic tune, but allows for a surreal build of plot, waiting for just the right action packed moment to drop the song on us. It’s as if Bowers has tried to condense all the punk-fantasy and B-movie weirdness of Repo Man into a seven minute clip.

Great Good Fine Ok – “You’re The One For Me”

“You’re The One For Me” is another example of the indie world’s newfound interest in R&B, but Brooklyn duo Great Good Fine Ok differ from artists like How To Dress Well, Rhye, and Autre Ne Veut in the way they flavor their music with the sort of maximalist fireworks you’d expect from M83. It’s a really satisfying clash of sound, and it carries into the visual of the song’s video. Directed by The Wild Honey Pie, the clip depicts a woman making a sandwich with a ritualistic care, and is at once extremely sexual and hilariously goofy.

Mikal Cronin - "Peace of Mind" (Official Video)

Mikal Cronin has released a video for his MCII track “Peace Of Mind.” The clip takes place in a motel, primarily tracking the day-to-day of a cleaning lady (played by Mary Timony of Helium/Wild Flag), with Cronin appearing on in-room televisions.

Migos – “Versace” Video

 Now they’ve finally made the “Versace” video with director Gabriel Hart, and it looks like it has about 15 times the budget of every other Migos video combined. The guys in the group dress fancy, hang out with models and baby leopards, and inhabit the sort of mansion that you don’t see too often in rap videos anymore. Stick around for when the song suddenly lurches into the mixtape track “Hannah Montana” and makes the most out of its accidental Miley Cyrus intersection.

"Coin" (EXIT 73 Studios)

“Coin” begins as a rather humble homage to fighting games of yesteryear, an 8-bit nod at nostalgia with lovingly crafted keyframes.

Then things get awesome.

More than just an epic fight scene, “Coin” is an odyssey told through the language of kicking ass. While mopping up the screen with hundreds of foes, the short’s hero journeys underwater, into outer space, through the belly of a whale and into the circles of hell. There are plenty of references to video games from my childhood, but even without that esoteric knowledge, it’s a wildly fun ride. 

“Coin” was directed and animated by Chris Burns (Exit 73 Studios) with music, sound design and compositing by Bob Fox.

Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga, Eminem To Play 1st YouTube Music Awards

Given the way people actually watch music videos these days, or even the way they straight-up listen to music, a YouTube Music Awards show makes way more sense than, say, the continued existence of the MTV Video Music Awards. And this fall, the website will kick off its first-ever annual awards show. As Billboard reports, the people at YouTube have tapped Spike Jonze, arguably the greatest music-video director ever, to be the show’s creative director, which strikes me as a very smart decision. Actor and former Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartzman will host the show, and the list of performers will include Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga, and Eminem.