2/27/2014

7 Days Of Funk - “Do My Thang” Video



Last year, 7 Days Of Funk, the retro synth-funk duo of Snoop Dogg and Dâm-Funk, released a self-titled album full of music that explicitly recalled the music they grew up on. The videos, for “Faden Away” and “Hit Da Pavement” and “I’ll Be There 4U,” went in heavy on the period-specific signifiers. But the duo’s new “Do My Thang” clip focuses on some more timeless pleasures: Dudes creating music in a studio, dudes performing said music against stark backgrounds, girls. John Mazyck directs.

Major Lazer - “Lose Yourself” (Feat. Moska & RDX) Official Video



For “Lose Yourself,” a song from the new Apocalypse Soon EP, Diplo’s Major Lazer project brought in help from the dance producer Moska and the be-suited, fauxhawked dancehall duo RDX. In the song’s brand-new video, Diplo, Moska, and a group of very energetic dancers visit a forest and an abandoned church. Goats show up. The whole thing is goofy, irreverent fun. Diplo, who seems to be enjoying life these days, directed it himself.

Lilacs & Champagne - “Shower Scene” (Official Video)



Experimental hip-hop/dub duo Lilacs & Champagne (Alex Hall and Emil Amos of Grails) are putting out a new EP later this year, and have just shared the video for the title cut. The video for “Shower Scene” is just as cut’n'paste as the song itself, which sounds like a moldy old hip-hop instrumental. Its grainy VHS aesthetic is reminiscent of their old video for “Everywhere, Everyone,” though this one is borderline NSFW (there’s no nudity, but the title of the track should give you an idea of what footage they’re using).

FUZZ - “Raise” (Official Video)



Last year, Ty Segall’s new-ish side project FUZZ released their self-titled debut LP, and now the San Francisco-based scuzz-rock trio have released the official video for album track “Raise.” The video takes place in a dark living room and focuses on a little boy staring at static (or — cleverly — fuzz) on his family’s TV screen. The screen suddenly shifts to footage of FUZZ, loudly and unforgivingly playing “Raise,” much to the little boy’s surprise. 

Director - Matt Yoka
Producer - Alex Westmore
Co-Producer - Sammy Hamed
Director of Photography - Seth Hagenstein
Assistant Director - Chris Greer
Makeup Effects - Susan Zeytuntsyan, Nestor Castañeda, Stephanie Holland & Siân Revill
&
The Boy - Will Babbitt

PAWS - “Tongues” (Official Video)



PAWS have been on our radar since 2012′s debut Cokefloat! introduced us to their charged indie rock, and now, the Glasgow band is back with a new song and a new album titled Youth Culture Forever. “Tongues” is definitely a sign of the band working in higher fidelity, but still with plenty of distorted goodness. Watch the Harrison Reid-directed video below, which consists of kaleidoscopic shots of two girls making out.

Watch David Byrne Cover Biz Markie’s “Just A Friend” To Make A Point About Royalties



Cake frontman John McCrea is one of the many artists railing against streaming services like Spotify and the way they only pay a pittance in royalties to artists. He’s put together a nonprofit called Content Creators Coalition, and last night, David Byrne headlined a CCC concert at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge; it also featured McRea, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Tift Merritt, and a few others. I have no idea how this led to Byrne doing an incredibly still and joyous cover of Biz Markie’s eternally wonderful atonal yawp “Just A Friend,” but that’s what happened. Byrne read the lyrics from a piece of paper but only lost the cadence once, and you can watch the miraculous fan-made video.

2/26/2014

The Faint - “Help In The Head” (Official Video)



At the dawn of the new millennium, Omaha’s the Faint was there for the ride as dance-punk morphed from a niche concern to the center of the indie rock universe and back. They haven’t released an album since 2008′s Fasciinatiion, but they went on a reunion tour in celebration of 2001′s much-loved Danse Macabre in 2012, and since then they’ve been working on a new album with Saddle Creek O.G. and former Bright Eyes/Monsters Of Folk member Mike Mogis. Now that album is ready to face the world. It’s called Doom Abuse, it’s coming out this April via SQE Music, and its announcement is accompanied by Tim Nackashi’s video for lead single “Help In The Head.” The clip features a man frantically running from… a laser pointer? A super-advanced rifle? Find out below.

The Coathangers - “Follow Me” Official Video (Feat. Mastodon)



The Coathangers and Mastodon are two Atlanta bands full of heavily tattooed badasses, but all of the Coathangers are women, and all the members of Mastodon are about as hilariously, stereotypically male as you can get. So it’s fun to see the members of Mastodon dressing up as Coathangers so they can shamelessly mug and ineptly lip-sync their way through the Coathangers’ video for their serrated single “Follow Me.” There’s also a person in a horse costume playing accordion? I have no idea. But the video is a goofy low-budget blast, and it builds to an out-of-nowhere punchline that had me guffawing like an idiot for probably too long. Newmerica directs.

Gardens & Villa - "Colony Glen" (Official Video)



In the same vein as their recent video for “Bullet Train,” Gardens & Villa’s “Colony Glen” has become the soundtrack for an extremely colorful and lo-fi clip directed by Hans Lo. The band is completely washed out in glowing lights that match the bleary synth hooks the track is bathed in.

Pentatonix - "Say Something" Video (A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera Cover)



[Official Video] Say Something - Pentatonix (A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera Cover)

FKA twigs & inc. - “FKA x inc.” (Official Video)



FKA twigs is the twitchy, fascinating British singer whose videos have been melting our brains since last year. Inc. is the brotherly gothed-out L.A. space-R&B duo whose videos can be pretty incredible, too. Together, they’ve teamed up to make a new song with the fairly self-explanatory title “FKA x inc.” It’s a beautifully absorbing, formless cloud of a love song. And its video, which twigs co-directed with Nick Walker, is just as visually ravishing as you’d expect, given everyone involved. It’s a sweeping noir vision of the three of them smoking weed and hanging out in the desert.

Future Of What - “The Rainbowed Air” (Official Video)



We saw Brooklyn synthpop band the Future Of What last year when they opened for the Blow, and soon they’ll be releasing their new album, Pro Dreams. The first single from it, “The Rainbowed Air,” was filled with bright flashy synths, but maintained a somberness that kept everything grounded. The new video by Prinze Jr. collects footage from hotel rooms, studio sessions, and long late-night drives — the latter of which is just about the perfect way to hear them.

Crooks On Tape - “If Feelings Mean A Thing” Video



John Schmersal got his start in the ’90s band Brainiac, one of my very favorite bands of all time. Those days are long past, and now we’re even a few years past Schmersal ending his own project, Enon. He now has two new bands going: Merge signees Vertical Scratchers and Misra associates Crooks On Tape.

Vertical Scratchers - "Kingdom Come" (Official Music Video)



Vertical Scratchers is one of the new projects from Enon founder and former Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal. Here, Schmersal plays alongside drummer Christian Beaulieu, and the band’s new album contains rock songs that are warped and textured, but without sacrificing any bite. In their new video, the track “Kingdom Come” becomes the soundtrack to a fractured, glitchy beach jam.

2/25/2014

You Blew It! - “You & Me & Me” (Official Video)



You Blew It!’s new video imagines the Orlando emo powerhouse playing a low-budget TV show hosted by a clueless white-haired codger who somehow ends up sitting in on drums by the time their performance of Keep Doing What You’re Doing jam “You & Me & Me” wraps up. Director Trevor Bowman effectively captures the look of public access TV, and the song remains solid.

EMA - "So Blonde" (Official Video)



This spring, the former Gowns leader Erika M. Anderson will give us The Future’s Void, her second album as EMA, and you should be excited. The searing industrial-influenced first single “Satellites” was the sort of song that demands your attention, and “So Blonde,” the searching fuzz-rocker she’s just shared, hits just as hard, though it does it in some very different ways. I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone combine soul-nourishing guitar swoops with discomfitingly incisive lyrics like this, but it damn sure wasn’t this decade. In the song’s video, from director Vice Cooler, Anderson lounges with the cool kids on California’s Venice Beach, while Molly Soda’s animated gifs clutter up the landscape.

Hamilton Leithauser - “Alexandra” (Feat. Rostam Batmanglij) Official Video



Just this morning, Hamilton Leithauser, the (former?) frontman of the Walkmen and the owner of one of indie rock’s greatest voices, announced the impending release of Black Hours, his debut solo album. And now he’s already shared the video for “Alexandra,” the album’s first single. Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij produced and co-wrote the song, and he shows up in the video, honking on a harmonica. Musically, the song is way jauntier than anything we’ve heard Leithauser sing before, and it’ll take some mental adjustment to get used to hearing him on songs like this. But director Tristan Patterson’s video is an entirely badass swagged-out affair, starring a tuxedoed Leithauser singing while surrounded with dancers.

Beyoncé - "Partition" (Explicit Video)


Music video by Beyoncé performing Partition. (C) 2013 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment

Now that “Drunk In Love” has effectively conquered the known universe, Beyoncé has marked “Partition,” the skittering sex-in-the-limo jam that’s my favorite song from her amazing self-titled album, as the next single to blow up. Since BEYONCÉ was a “visual album,” the song already had a stylized, negligee-happy video from director Jake Nava. But if I’m not mistaken, this edit of the video is just slightly dirtier than the one that ended up on the album, and it’s got Beyoncé in states of undress that may test your workplace conduct codes. Either way, it’s the first time you cheapskates who didn’t buy the album can see it without hunting through janky quasi-legal video sites. Jay Z, shrouded in shadow, makes a few brief appearances.

Coldplay - "Midnight" (Official Video)



Coldplay's most recent record, Mylo Xyloto, was released back in 2011. Today they've shared the first hint at a new record via the atmospheric video for "Midnight" . The video was directed by Mary Wigmore.

HAIM - “If I Could Change Your Mind” (Official Video)



The HAIM juggernaut continues! In their latest video, which we’ve been anticipating, Danielle, Este, and Alana display some impressive dance moves courtesy of choreographer Fatima Robinson (Save The Last Dance, Dreamgirls, many Aaliyah videos). Warren Fu directed. It’s a lot of fun to watch and will birth an avalanche of GIFs.

Schoolboy Q - “Break The Bank” (Official Video)(Explicit)



The L.A. rap spitfire Schoolboy Q is one day away from releasing his furious new album Oxymoron, and now he’s made a video for one of its best songs, the splenetic Alchemist-produced banger “Break The Bank.” Director Jason Goldwatch’s clip is an absorbing piece of sun-infused tough-guy verite, and it stars both an extensively face-tatted Latino gangster and Q’s four-year-old daughter in a tutu. Q contains multitudes!

Woman’s Hour - “Her Ghost” (Official Video)



The London four-piece Woman’s Hour recently made their Secretly Canadian debut with their new single “Her Ghost,” a lush and open-hearted song that walks some imaginary line between twee and R&B. The song’s new video, from directors Broomberg & Chanarin, makes a plainspoken song even more open and communicative. It’s a single, patient black-and-white shot of a particularly expressive sign-language interpreter spelling out the song’s lyrics.

Max Tundra - “I Wanna Be Your Lover” (Prince Cover) Video



A few years back, Max Tundra spent a day recording a cover of Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover” entirely with hand-played keyboard parts and no samples. Since realizing that it isn’t available online anywhere, he posted a very silly “phoned-in” video with all the charm of something you might come across on public-access TV at 2 AM. It has a production value pretty much of whatever the webcam cost (and I guess those Seinfeld DVDs on the shelf behind him), and at one point he just lets the song keep playing while he takes a break to eat a piece of fruit. It’s funny and thrown together, but Tundra’s actual cover is impeccably converted into the bleepy-bloopy sound that is so distinctly his.

Also if you haven’t seen the actual video for “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” you’re welcome.

2/24/2014

Xiu Xiu - “El Naco” Official Video (NSFW)



“El Naco” is up there with “Support Our Troops” and “I Luv Abortion” in Xiu Xiu’s discography in terms of pure discomfort factor. It’s a dissonant, ugly song and now there is a fittingly unsettling video for it that continues the band’s recent trend of premiering videos in atypical places. While the porn and kittens mash-up of “Black Dick” first showed up on Pornhub and the murder-obsessed video for “Stupid In The Dark” debuted on an even filthier site, this John Clark-directed video for “El Naco” premiered by the horror movie blog Bloody Disgusting. It’s a tamer video than those in terms of violence and sex, but is arguably the most unsettling one of the three. Focusing on a BDSM scene between two people, most of the disturbing stuff is implied and edited to cut away at just the right time (something that was done first and best by Psycho, though a similar technique in Takashi Miike’s Audition seems like the more appropriate influence). Although there are plenty of times Xiu Xiu have transcended public assumptions about something and found beauty in it, this video is pure horror movie creep.

Cut Copy - “We Are Explorers” (Official Video)



“We Are Explorers” is one of the highlights from Free Your Mind, the sorely underrated album that the Australian dance-rock trio Cut Copy dropped last year. Its brand-new video tells the romantic story of two tiny glowing humanoids who appear to be on some kind of fact-finding mission on earth. Directors Masa Kawamura, Qanta Shimizu, and Aramique made the entire thing with 3D-printed figurines, and you can download your own versions to print out here.

Julio Bashmore - "Peppermint" ft. Jessie Ware (Official Video)



When you’ve got the option of putting Jessie Ware in your video, I can’t imagine any reason why you’d go with an animated video instead, but that’s what Julio Bashmore did. Bashmore, who’s produced for Ware in the past, recruited Ware to guest on “Peppermint,” his great new panting house single. And the video, from director Noah Harris, is a lot of fun; it’s a psychedelic stop-motion-animated head trip with screaming skulls and clapping babies and dogs repeatedly jumping through hoops. Still: No Jessie Ware.

Your Friend - “Tame One” (Official Video)



Your Friend is Taryn Miller. She recently put out a debut EP Jekyll/Hyde and has now enlisted Dalton Paley to make this easygoing video for the track “Tame One.” It follows Miller throughout a day in Lawrence, Kansas, the base where she has worked on crafting these dreamy rock songs.

Simian Ghost - “Echoes Of Songs (For Trish Keenan)” Official Video



Sweetly sighing Swedish combo Simian Ghost is preparing to release The Veil, the follow-up to 2012′s electro-pop offering Youth. Lead single “Echoes Of Songs” moves ever-so-slightly from the last album’s indie-pop tendencies into a dreamier, more expansive sound. That’s purposeful: “Echoes Of Songs” is a tribute to the late Trish Keenan of the great cosmopolitan experimentalists Broadcast. The trio has conjured something close to Broadcast’s signature sound without abandoning their own, flushing out the floaty, futuristic soundscape with the softhewn harmonies that are Simian Ghost’s greatest strength. Director Victor Claeson’s pristine black and white performance video matches the Broadcast aesthetic too, so this thing looks, feels, and sounds like a proper tribute. Press the (tender) button below and enjoy.

Arcade Fire - Afterlife (Live on The Tonight Show)



"AFTERLIFE" (LIVE ON THE TONIGHT SHOW) from Arcade Fire's new album Reflektor

Watch A Depressing Local News Report From Aberdeen’s Controversial Kurt Cobain Day


Yesterday was the first Kurt Cobain Day in Cobain’s onetime hometown of Aberdeen, Washington, a town that Cobain never exactly praised. By all accounts, it was pretty sad. But you won’t know just how sad it was until you watch the video below, a local news report that throws a ton of skepticism at the very idea of celebrating Cobain. (Cobain, the reporter notes, was “not exactly George Washington.” This is true!) We also get to see the various clumsy ways that the local government honored Cobain, which are a sight to behold. (The statue is crying.) Watch it all unfold below.

Heterotic - “Rain” (Feat. Vezelay) Official Video



Mike Paradinas is best-known for the many, many years he’s spent cranking out squelchy dance experiments under the name µ-Ziq. But he and his wife Lara Rix-Martin also make dreamy electronic pop music together; as a duo, they’ve taken the kinda-hilarious name Heterotic. Weird Drift, the second Heterotic album, lands this spring, and its first single is “Rain,” a gorgeously gooey collaboration with the singer Vezelay. The track’s video has Vezelay’s face floating through some sort of fantastical space-scape.

Forest Swords - “The Weight Of Gold” (Official Video)

The Eight Chapters of Ramen on Nowness.com


Last year, the British guitarist and producer Forest Swords gave us Engravings, a deeply absorbing album of ominous, skeletal, spaced-out almost-instrumentals. It’s one of those epic, absorbing listens that seems to exist completely free of genre, and now the director Benjamin Millepied has made an album worthy of its intensity. Millipied, Natalie Portman’s husband and Black Swan choreographer, filmed on the banks of the Dead Sea, capturing the dancer Billy Barry as he whirls and convulses across an otherworldly landscape. It’s a great video.

Kevin Morby - “If You Leave And If You Marry” (Official Music Video)



Former Woods member Kevin Morby released his rootsy solo album Harlem River last fall, but his video for album track “If You Leave And If You Marry” dates back much farther than that: The video is built from old home videos made by his grandfather. Explains Morby:
Super 8 footage shot by my grandfather in Scottsbluff, Nebraska during the 50s and early 60s. This video loosely follows my Aunt Carol from childhood to her high school graduation, and along the way you are introduced to my father, uncle, and grandmother, amongst many other extended family members, most of whom I have never met.
In loving memory of Larry Anderson & Dorthy Fletcher.
Pretty cool! Kind of makes me want to dig through dusty family archives.

Pussy Riot – “Putin Will Teach You How To Love” Video



Yesterday, members of Pussy Riot were whipped while trying to perform in front of an Olympics sign. Today, in truly defiant Pussy Riot style, they’ve turned the incident into video performance art.

“Putin Will Teach You How To Love” starts out with serene scenes of a very gray beach. Colorful balaclava-clad Pussy Riot members are frolicking in the surely frigid waters. But, as often happens in Russia, serenity soon turns to chaos as a punk guitar rips through, bringing with it scenes from yesterday’s fracas.

There is also some less violent footage of Pussy Riot performing in front of a different Olympics banner and strolling about the streets of Sochi — but Wednesday’s Cossack-led whipping is clearly the centerpiece. 

According to a Chicago Tribune report, the song itself addresses the surveillance and security at the Olympic Games in Sochi, calling the games nothing more than a PR stunt aimed at distracting the world from human rights abuses.

Rush Midnight - “In Your Room” (Official Video)



We heard “In Your Room” by Rush Midnight (Russ Manning, formerly of Twin Shadow) a few weeks ago, and now there’s a video for it. The track already had a sort of late night vibe to it, but in this clip (which Manning directed) it becomes the soundtrack to an intimate gathering with wine, crazy straws, and dancing all bathed in red light. Speaking of being bathed — Manning shows up too, in a completely different series of shots singing from a bubble bath.

2/20/2014

Dum Dum Girls - “Too True To Be Good” (Official Video)



“Too True To Be Good” is an effects-pedal-happy dream-pop stunner from the very good new Dum Dum Girls album Too True, and now it follows “Lost Boys And Girls Club” as the album’s second video. The new clip goes heavy on film-school effects — hazy filters, double-exposures, dissolving film, stock footage of flowers — but the attention is firmly on lead Dum Dum Dee Dee, who continues to hold the camera with glamorous grace. (She gets safe-for-work topless in the video, and you probably already know if this information is relevant to your interests.) Nathaniel Brown directed the video, but he had help; V Magazine produced it, and Tamaryn, Dee Dee’s bandmate in the side project Les Demoniaques, served as creative director.

Pink Mountaintops - “Ambulance City” (Official Video)



2009′s Outside Love, the last album from Stephen McBean’s Black Mountain side project Pink Mountaintops, was one of the best and most slept-on rock records in recent memory, and you owe it to yourself to give it a listen on Spotify or whatever. The band recently announced plans to release Get Back, their long-overdue follow-up, and while lead single “North Hollywood Microwaves” was an endearingly batshit piece of music, it didn’t exactly raise hopes that they’d equal Outside Love anytime soon. So it’s heartening that “Ambulance City,” the second song the band has shared, is a hearty and straightforward rocker, even if the video is all vaguely unsettling Harmoney Korine-esque lo-fi ookiness, with McBean wearing a nurse’s uniform and shit. Olivia Jaffe directed the video.

2/19/2014

London Grammar - “Hey Now” (Official Video)



'Hey Now' is our new single taken from our album 'If You Wait'.

Tonight, the Brit Awards, the UK equivalent to the Grammys, go down in London, and the languid, hazy R&B/pop trio London Grammar are up for the Best British Breakthrough award. The group has spent a year building a serious name for itself. But the song that started everything for the group was “Hey Now,” a slow-building swooner that they posted online a year ago, as an unsigned group. It went viral, and now they’ve finally made a video for it, a hazily magical affair in which some beautiful stop-motion-animated disturbances light up the deep woods. Chris Ullens directs.

Perfect Pussy - “I” (Official Video)



Rickety Syracuse punks Perfect Pussy will slap us upside the collective head next month with their debut album Say Yes To Love; first single “Driver” makes me want to break things. But before we get that album, the band has shared a video for “I,” a song from their 2013 EP I Have Lost All Desire For Feeling. It’s one of these band-has-fun-on-tour videos, but it works because Perfect Pussy’s energy is a marvelous thing. That live show looks fun, too. Lukas Hodge directs.

Kelis – “Jerk Ribs” Video



We first posted “Jerk Ribs,” Kelis’s first collaboration with the TV On The Radio production mastermind Dave Sitek, 10 months ago, when it was still called “Call On Me.” The percussive soul-funk workout is now the cornerstone of Food, Kelis’s forthcoming Sitek-produced album, and now it has an appropriately sunny video. The clip mostly has Kelis getting glammed up for photoshoots and then posing in said photoshoots, which is honestly probably how she spends a lot of her life. My favorite part is where she thinks she sees a bug and sort of veers her head away. There’s also a nice interaction with a giraffe.

Willis Earl Beal - “Coming Through” Video (Feat. Mischa Barton)



When was the last time you thought about Mischa Barton? The former The O.C. star shows up in Willis Earl Beal’s new video for the Cat Power collaboration “Coming Through,” a lo-fi short film in which Barton falls in with Beal’s (fictitious) religious group, the Church Of Nobody. The song, culled from last year’s Nobody knows., remains great. It kicks in about 7:15 into the 10-minute clip, but everything before the music is entertaining too.

Ramona Lisa (Caroline Polachek) - “Arcadia” Video



Caroline Polachek has spent nearly a decade leading the great Brooklyn indie-pop group Chairlift, and now she’s stepping out on her own. Polachek has adapted the alter-ego Ramona Lisa for a new solo project, and she’ll release her solo debut Arcadia this spring. Polachek recorded the album in Rome, using only a laptop — composing in MIDI and singing into the computer’s internal mic. She calls the result “pastoral electronic music.” First single “Arcadia,” which opens the album, is an uncanny creeper of a song; it positively drips with ominous atmosphere, and Polachek’s voice floats beautifully above her dark synthetic tones. She co-directed the video with Ross Menuez, and it has her looking straight out of an Argento movie, with horrifying close-up images of cicadas repeating throughout.

The Afghan Whigs - “Algiers” Video



The Afghan Whigs, who originally broke up in 2001, got back together a couple of years ago to tour, and now they’re getting ready to release Do To The Beast, their first new album in 16 years. The first song we’ve heard from the album is “Algiers,” a slow-burning strummer with a hint of Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western dynamics. So it’s fitting that the new “Algiers” video, directed by past Whigs collaborator Phil Harder, stars Whigs frontman Greg Dulli as a swaggering cowboy-hatted gentleman who rides a stretch limo into an Old West town. Violence, predictably, follows. 

First Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer



World Premiere of First Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer

Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel (voice Groot), Bradley Cooper (voice Rocket), Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close & Benicio del Toro

2/18/2014

Lily Allen – “L8 CMMR” Lyric Video



Old-school gaming graphics seem to be making a comeback. First there was Flappy Bird (R.I.P.) and now it’s Lily Allen’s new lyric video for “L8 CMMR.” The colorful and pixelated video simulates various classic video games played by a Lily-like avatar, lyrics splattered in bright bubble letters throughout each scene.

Silversun Pickups - “Cannibal” (Official Video)



Jimmy Kimmel Live - Worldwide Exclusive Debut -- Music Video for Silversun Pickups' "Cannibal"

Kimmel’s YouTube channel also debuted the band’s “Cannibal” video, which has a whole lot of artfully photographed people running in terror from some unseen evil.

Starwalker - “Losers Can Win” (Official Video)


Starwalker, the collaborative project between Air’s Jean-Benoît Dunckel and composer Bardi Johannsson, have dropped the official video for their electropop song “Losers Can Win.” The video has a purposely cheesy aesthetic, with filtered slow motion shots and a whole lot of glitter and bubblegum.

Sisyphus - “Alcohol” Lyric Video



The line between music video and lyric video has blurred to the point that “Alcohol,” our second taste from the upcoming self-titled album by the Sufjan/Son Lux/Serengeti trio Sisyphus (fka s / s / s), has a “lyric video” without any lyrics in it. Instead, it features a collage-like slideshow of global scenes, celebrities, and Sisyphus members by artist Jim Hodges, whose current exhibition in Minneapolis dovetails with the Sisyphus album. As with “Calm It Down” before it, “Alcohol” lives in somewhat amorphous stylistic space; it’s a bit like The Downward Spiral-era NIN crossed with the oddball Anticon hip-hop and ornate boutique catharsis music that helped bring this group together.

2/17/2014

Jerry James - “Lana Del Rey” (Feat. Ariel Pink) Official Video



Jerry James’ “Lana Del Rey” acts as the male equivalent of Kitty’s Danny Brown ode “Okay Cupid,” landing somewhere between oddly charming and stupid fun. As with Kitty, what elevates the song beyond its jokey lyrics is the slick production work handled by Raw Deal, a duo composed of Ariel Pink and Justin Raisen. The video is a collection of far-out imagery, the weirdest being a bunch of people dancing around with Lana masks on.

Angel Haze - “Battle Cry” (Feat. Sia) (Official Music Video)



Remember when Angel Haze made her name through the acerbic rap of “New York“? Two years is a long time, and with her major-label debut, she made a play at the mainstream and largely fell flat. The video for “Battle Cry” only serves to show how much the rapper has changed her image. Produced and co-written by big time pop player Greg Kurstin and featuring Sia on vocals, the song is sickly sweet and uplifting and now has a cheesy video to go along with it. Haze is making an admirable effort to shed some light on child abuse issues with the video, but it’s too glossy and manufactured to really make an impact.

Diplo - “Biggie Bounce” (Official Video) + “Drunk in Love” Remix



Chances are no one at Georgia’s Mableton Moose Lodge knew who Diplo was when he showed up to shoot the video for “Biggie Bounce,” but they probably won’t forget him anytime soon. The producer arrived with featured rappers Travis Porter and Angger Dimas in tow, along with some dancers who tried their best to twerk the patrons into shock. Despite their best efforts, everyone seemed to have a pretty good time.

Guided By Voices - “Planet Score” (Official Video)



Guided By Voices – “Planet Score” (Dir. Mike Postalakis)

I’m excited for Better Call Saul to start, but I’m a bit bummed that AMC didn’t go with my idea for a Breaking Bad spinoff: A sitcom about the continuing adventures of Badger and Skinny Pete, Jesse’s two bungling-bood comic-relief tweaker sidekicks. This playground-basketball hallucination isn’t exactly that show made flesh, but at the very least, it’s a trippy dream that Badger could lovingly describe to Skinny Pete in the pilot episode.

2/14/2014

Bleached - “Guy Like You” (Official Video)



Los Angeles band Bleached has put out several cheerily lo-fi videos since releasing their debut album, Ride Your Heart, last year. This new one, for the song “Guy Like You,” is directed by Micayla Grace, and much like the Halloween-themed video for “Love Spells,” this one has a certain romantic charm to it (even if it’s mostly shot in a graveyard) that seems appropriate for Valentine’s Day.

Cass McCombs - “Name Written In Water” (Official Video)



Cass McCombs’s 2013 double album Big Wheel And Others has already yielded a truly strange parade of music videos: for “Morning Star,” “Big Wheel,” “Brighter!,” and the all-time what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch champion “Unearthed.” And now director Jeffrey Peixoto has come up with a fun treatment of the jaunty tune “Name Written In Water”: Two minutes and 48 seconds of straight pig butchery! The entire video seems geared toward making sure you never eat pork again, and maybe in forcing you to throw up whatever bacon you might’ve eaten for breakfast this morning. I made it maybe 30 seconds in, so maybe it turns into a beautiful parable of love afterwards, but I doubt it. If you’ve got the stomach for it, it’s below.

The National - “I Need My Girl” (Official Video)



This being Valentine’s Day, we should expect a parade of love-related releases today, and it all starts right here. The National have given us their stately, kaleidoscopic video for “I Need My Girl,” the broodingly romantic tune from last year’s Trouble Will Find Me. Director Sophia Peer has filmed a bunch of fancily dressed couples dancing with each other and then swirled them all together against a stark black background. 

S. Carey - "Fire-scene" (Official Video)


Last month we heard the first single off the new album by S. Carey, best known for his work in Bon Iver. Now that song, “Fire-Scene,” has a music video with some stunning visuals. The clip blends shots of nature with ones of cities, but captures both with an equal sort of majesty. It’s really worth noting that none of this is stock footage, director Joe Baughman actually shot everything you see in the video, even when it meant lugging a camera in freezing weather. Watch and read Carey and Baughman’s comments about the video in full.

S. Carey:
I was drawn to Joe as director / film-maker because of his photographic aesthetic. I was drawn to the desolation of his photos from a recent trip to eastern Washington state – the high desert, cold, but not too snowy, and the vastness of the valleys. Seeing the motion of his shots and elements themselves took his photos to the next level. I challenged him to take some chances with harder edges and darker imagery because although the song sounds smooth and gentle, it comes from a darker place. Joe’s interpretations of the darkness, as well as his juxtapositions of Mother nature vs. Man-made things make the video more thought-provoking.
Joe Baughman:
In order to acquire the images that Sean and I desired, I made my way from Indiana (where waterfalls, etc. are rather scarce) to Spokane, WA and its surrounding area. The magnificence of the winter landscapes were well worth the bitter cold (wind chills far below 0!) and exhaustion I endured (lugging camera equipment for miles through snow and across ice, sometimes with an assistant, sometimes alone). I experienced and captured a plethora of unanticipated images presented to me by Nature herself, as if she desired to add her own voice to the project.
(via FILTER)

Majical Cloudz - “Love Soul” Interactive Video



Like the November non-album single “Savage,” Majical Cloudz’ new “Love Soul” has been a part of the band’s live set for some time. As frontman Devon Welsh tells it: “’Love Soul’ was written during the time of many of the other songs on Impersonator but we decided to leave it off the album.” Today, the band has released a studio version of the track, which evolved during the performance process, along with an interactive video. It’s a skeletal, morose, entrancing piece of music — i.e., a Majical Cloudz song.

Twin Shadow (Feat. Samantha Urbani) - “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” (The Smiths Cover) Video


The clip premiered at Rookie, who asked Lewis why he chose this cover…

Everything I do, I mean sincerely, but there is a little joke within this one. In every critique of Twin Shadow, there is a dropping of Morrissey’s name, which I always thought was funny because I have never really been a huge fan of Morrissey or the Smiths. [Laughs] So it’s a nod to people calling me “the Dominican Morrissey”.
I think part of it is just that the trend in underground music the last 20 years has been to sing in a high, sort of whiny voice—coming from that MGMT, John Lennon place. I have a gloomy, low-ish voice, so I think people attach that to Morrissey.

Thurston Moore - "Heavenmetal" (Official Video)



Director Julia Langendorff filmed the video in Paris, and it’s got Moore playing the song in a room full of candles, while a couple of young ladies witchily bond with each other.

Little Dragon - “Klapp Klapp” (Official Video)



The sophisticated Swedish pop group Little Dragon returns this spring with their new album Nabuma Rubberband, and yesterday, they shared their idiosyncratic, rhythmically driven first single “Klapp Klapp.” They’ve made two videos for that song, and they’ve recruited Nabil, the master of the form right now, to direct one of them. Nabil also served as “creative director,” whatever that might mean, for the video they shared today, but he didn’t direct it himself. Instead, Taylor Cohen directed this version of the “Klapp Klapp” video. The Cohen version is very The Serpent And The Rainbow; it has a very intense lady doing some sort of voodoo raise-the-dead ritual.

Lakutis - “Jesus Piece” (Official Video)



Next week Lakutis drops his new album, Three Sea Shells, following the single “Body Scream.” Now he’s got a new video for the track “Jesus Piece,” directed by Kate Bryant. While it’s mostly just Lakutis rapping directly to the camera, progressively crazier shit happens to him. It starts out simple and striking, with just a trickle of blood running from his nose, but eventually he’s getting slimed, Nickelodeon-style, with gold paint and rapping under blacklights that make him look like a skeleton. None of it would work at all if it wasn’t for the fact that Lakutis is such an intense performer (he doesn’t react to any of it), and even without all special effects you can’t take your eyes off him. 

Death Grips - "No Love" (Official Video)



Death Grips
"No Love"
Directed by Death Grips
album: NO LOVE DEEP WEB

If I’m not mistaken, the video is intended to be viewed with old-school 3D glasses, which presumably would make the experience pretty fucking intense. Sans glasses, it’s still really goddamn weird and tripped out.

La Dispute - “For Mayor In Splitsville” (Official Video)



The Grand Rapids, Michigan post-hardcore ragers La Dispute are about to self-release their new album Rooms Of A House, and we’ve already posted the feral song “Stay Happy There.” The new “For Mayor In Splitsville” shows a different side of the band: Clangier, more melodic, more driven by frontman Jordan Dreyer’s emotive spoken-word quiet passages. The video focuses on the immediate aftermath of a breakup, with both halves of an ex-couple figuring out how they’re going to sleep that night.

Kitten - “Money” Video (Feat. Ariel Pink)



When Ariel Pink went to see Charli XCX live recently, he ended up hitting it off with Chloe Chaidez, leader of the opening band Kitten, and the two went back to Chaidez’s hotel room to… make a video. The clip, for Kitten’s kinda-rappy studio experiment “Money,” has Chaidez and Pink looking stoned and glamorous in a hotel room and the nearby pool, smoking and drinking from bottles and occasionally making out. It’s all very Last Night’s Party, if that’s not too dated of a reference. Kaitlin Christy directs.

2/13/2014

Nicki Minaj - “Lookin Ass Nigga” (Official Video)



If there was any doubt that Nabil is the greatest artist currently working in the medium of music-video, let’s put that to bed. Nabil’s new video for Nicki Minaj’s sneering put-down “Lookin Ass Nigga” marries K-pop excess to vast Anton Corbijn-style lonely desert minimalism and diamond-dipped Hype Williams fetishism, and it is amazing. It’s just Nicki in the desert, mostly alone, bringing along a case full of ridiculously revealing outfits and a couple of assault rifles. But that is more than enough to burn your ocular cavities. Watch it below.


Blouse - “Happy Days” (Official Video)



Blouse follow up their surreal video for “A Feeling Like This” with an eerie accompaniment to “Happy Days,” another cut off their recent album Imperium. Here director Anna Alek crafts an ambiguous scene of a woman on a barren stretch of highway, with only her car headlights to cut through the dark.

RipTide – "In The Middle of the Nite" (Official Video)



Come along for a night out with a group of clandestine street racers in this explosive music video...

Amsterdam-based illustrator Stefan Glerum teamed up with animation studio Crooked Line to create this animated music video for DJ and producer RipTide. Crooked Line was responsible for bringing Stefan’s illustrations to life for the first time.

To coincide with the launch of the video, Stefan Glerum put together an exhibition of works from this project at Kallenbach Gallery in Amsterdam. The show features an extensive amount of original drawings, sketches and prints from this project, which can be viewed until February 24th at the gallery.

For more info go to: kallenbachgallery.com/inthemiddleofthenite

This music video came together as part of the collaboration between RipTide and the Jäger Music DJ program

Credits:
Illustrations: Stefan Glerum
Website: stefanglerum.com
Animation: Crooked Line
Website: crookedline.nl
Facebook: facebook.com/crookedline
Music: RipTide
Website: riptidemusic.nl
Illustration assistants:
Jarmo van Berkel
Jim Glerum
Jasmijn de Nood
Animation:
Menno Endt
Theun Hendrikx
Sebastian Dráb
Stefan Glerum
Supported by Jäger Music
Website: jagermusic.tumblr.com
Also check out our making of videos:
SFX-Compilation: vimeo.com/85928540
Compositing: vimeo.com/85928539
3D modeling: vimeo.com/85928537
Moving Storyboard: vimeo.com/85928538

Mr. Dream - “Making Muscles (Powered By Faroe Petroleum)” Video



Mr. Dream, the Brooklyn power-trio masters of seasick postpunk churn, have been working on their new album The Ultimate In Luxury (Powered By Lexus) for a while, and we’ve posted the early tracks “Fringy Slider” and “Loud Tools.” They’ve now shared another one, a heaving, swinging, merciless song called “Making Muscles (Powered By Faroe Petroleum).” For its video, they’ve edited together some ancient bodybuilding footage that fits the song shockingly well. See if you can find this guy. (This would probably be a good place to point out that drummer and producer Nick Sylvester is a very good friend of mine, but we’d be posting this regardless.)

Thundercat - “Evangelion”/”We’ll Die” (Official Video)



Thundercat is a bass virtuoso and a frequent Flying Lotus collaborator who made a beautifully spacey soul album called Apocalypse last year. But in his new video for “Evangelion” and “We’ll Die,” two songs from Apocalypse, he’s something else: A futuristic samurai warrior, stoically trudging through a blasted desertscape with his sword and his guitar. B+ directed the video, shooting everything gorgeously, and Thundercat simply looks badass.

Nissan Rogue Comes in Handy When You're Battling a Marauding Band of Evil Snowmen


Next time you're caught driving in a winter storm, Nissan Canada wants you to be grateful you're only dealing with the natural elements and not a supernatural mob of malicious snowmen who are hell bent on destroying everything around them.

Unless you're driving a Nissan Rogue, in which case be happy knowing that if the evil snowmen do magically appear, you can use your all-wheel drive to plow through them like you're playing a less twisted version of Carmageddon, and save all the poor rubes driving other makes and models by letting them pile into the back of your roomy interior.

The creatures in this new spot, from TBWA Toronto, may happily remind Calvin and Hobbes fans of The Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons. More generally, it's a neat, fresh way for Nissan to dramatize the product's suitability for harsh weather conditions—full of entertaining moments like the angry snowmen beating the crap out of a snow blower with snow shovels, and the perfectly creepy head cock one offers right before getting pancaked.

Now all we want to know is where we can get one to keep as a pet.

Credits below.



CREDITS
Client: Nissan Canada
Agency: TBWA, Toronto
Executive Creative Director: Allen Oke
Creative Director: Rodger Eyre
Associate Creative Director, Art Director: Susie Lee
Copywriter: Jonah Flynn
Head of Broadcast: Nadya Macneil
Production House: Sons and Daughters
Director: Mark Zibert
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Executive Producer: Liane Thomas
Line Producer: Neil Bartley
Editing: Poster Boy
Executive Producer: Michelle Rich
Editor: Mark Paiva
Editing Assistant: Johnny Okkerse
Transfer: Alter Ego
Colorist: Wade Odlum
Effects: Legacy Effects
Effects Technicians: Shane Mahan, Mark Killingsworth
Postproduction: The Mill
Producer: Jeremy Moore
Compositing Lead, Visual Effects Supervisor: Kyle Cody
Computer Graphics Lead: Jeff Dates
Visual Effects Supervisor: Andreas Berner
Executive Producer: Melanie Wickham
Audio House: Eggplant
Head of Production: Nicola Treadgold
Director: Adam Damelin
Engineer: Nathan Handy

2/12/2014

The Notwist - “Kong” (Official Video)



Later this month the Notwist will put out Close To The Glass, their first album in six years. We’ve already heard the title track and “Kong,” and now they have shared the Yu Sato directed video for the latter. It’s an animated clip about a man trying to escape a massive flood which eventually turns into a kaiju monster. The cartoon style, framed in an old television, gives it a charm that is more Hanna-Barbera than Merian C. Cooper (or Peter Jackson for that matter). When all seems lost Kong dives in to try and save the day. We won’t reveal the winner, but let’s just say anyone who has seen King Kong Vs. Godzilla knows it’s a rookie monster mistake to take on Kong in the water during a storm.

U2 - “Invisible” (Official Video)



On Super Bowl Sunday U2 released “Invisible,” a song from their Danger Mouse-produced 13th studio album. It is not the first single, but “a sneak preview — to remind people we exist,” according to Bono. “Invisible” debuted at #27 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, which doesn’t sound that impressive, but based on the fact that a day and a half of free iTunes downloads of the track raised more than $3 million for the Global Fund, I think we can call it a success. The song’s video — a dynamic live performance shot by Mark Romanek in Santa Monica last month — was previewed in that Super Bowl commercial, and now the complete clip is now available. It’s no “Where The Streets Have No Name,” but it’s better than “Red Hill Mining Town.” Bono crowdsurfs in it.

Quilt - “Tie Up The Tides” (Official Video)



Quilt seem to be making a habit of putting out videos that match their music: gently psychedelic, warm, and homespun. The video for “Arctic Shark” was a sunny trip that came just in time for winter, and while this new one directed by Edward Greenberg & Ian Perlman (the latter of which made the cool video for DIIV’s “Doused”) is a little darker, for most it’ll still be like looking through a portal to a place that’s much more pleasant than the weather outside.

Cloud Nothings - "I'm Not Part of Me" Video (Live at Baby's All Right)



Cloud Nothings performing "I'm Not Part of Me" live at Baby's All Right. Taken from the band's brand new album "Here and Nowhere Else", coming April 1 on Carpark/Mom+Pop.

Xiu Xiu - “Black Dick” (Official Video) Premieres On PornHub


Last week Xiu Xiu released their grisly, violent video for the Angel Guts: Red Classroom single “Stupid In The Dark”. Now they have another one that needs some context before watching. Xiu Xiu just premiered their new video for the percussive, droning “Black Dick” on PornHub, and to call it NSFW is an extreme understatement. It splices together various hardcore sex clips, occasionally cutting to dogs or a few kittens. It’s a provocative and cool idea, especially if you’re familiar with the band and generally a fan of what they do, just be aware of what you’re getting into if you’re at work. You can head to Xiu Xiu’s safe-for-work site, which then provides a link to the video.

SOAK - “Blud” Video



“You’ve got a problem, and I can’t fix it” goes the opening line of SOAK’s new single, delivered in the young singer’s native Irish accent, and without hiding one bit of the melancholy that comes with accepting a fact like that. “Blud” is a love song, sure, but not an easy one. SOAK is Bridie Monds-Watson, a 17-year-old songwriter and the first signee to Goodbye Records, the new label run by the members of CHVRCHES. Today we have the video for “Blud,” shot on landscapes and inside buildings as understated and beautiful as the song. 

2/11/2014

Metronomy - “Love Letters” (Official Video)



Metronomy – “Love Letters” Video (Dir. Michel Gondry)

Michel Gondry is my pick for the greatest music video director of all time, and his new video for “Love Letters,” an uptempo glam-rocker from the British dance-rock group Metronomy, is the first music video he’s directed since Björk’s “Crystalline” in 2011. As someone who watches a ton of music videos, it’s a pleasure to see whatever Gondry comes up with, even if it might be a bit confounding on first viewing. This one is a long single take of the band playing the song, the camera panning around them as they’re in some sort of box, with different art and different windows on every side.

Tegan And Sara (Feat. The Lonely Island) - “Everything Is AWESOME!!!” The LEGO® Movie (Official Video)



Tegan And Sara’s ridiculous collaboration with the Lonely Island for The Lego Movie now has an even more ridiculous video that is still somehow incredibly endearing. It’s hard not to crack a smile watching Legos getting chased by Lego-gators or being dipped in chocolate frosting. The artists themselves only show up in Lego form, but it’s still good fun.

SoKo - “Love Letter” (Official Video)



The late French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle spent a great deal of the 20th century building an impressive body of work with an extremely distinct visual style. “Love Letter,” by French singer SoKo, was inspired by Phalle’s book My Love, Where Shall We Make Love? and can be heard as part of Aaron Rose’s short animation based on the artist’s drawings.


Via: Nowness.

Marissa Nadler - “Was It A Dream” (Official Video)


In Marissa Nadler’s video for the spectral folk lullaby “Was It A Dream,” we see a man using a film-editing machine to rediscover some ancient bits of silent movie. And on that old film, we see Nadler lurking like a ghost. The video itself is made to look like some old horror movie, like it’s a story about the unwitting awakening of an old spirit. Ryan Hamilton Walsh of Hallelujah The Hills directs, and the video work as a nice visual complement to July, the haunting album that Nadler released last week.

Gardens & Villa - “Bullet Train” (Official Video)



Dunes was Gardens & Villa’s coming out as analog fetishists, and nothing celebrated that more than “Bullet Train.” Its new Tony Katai-directed video embraces that quality, envisioning the band in a grainy, decaying VHS world. There’s visual static, bad color, and general public access weirdness, but the video makes all that datedness oddly attractive.

Phantogram - “Fall In Love” Video



The upstate New York duo Phantogram seems poised to blow the fuck up this year, and that’s largely on the strength of their sharp, arresting big-beated hit “Fall In Love.” The song’s brand-new video is a glamorous black-and-white swirl of lights and geometric patterns and spiky leather gloves, and it will only help in this group’s continuous rise.

Chelsea Wolfe - “Feral Love” Video (NSFW)



Chelsea Wolfe – “Feral Love” Video (NSFW) (Dir. Mark Pellington)

Chelsea Wolfe is going to be in the movies. The dark-pop singer-songwriter has teamed up with the director Mark Pellington, who did Pearl Jam’s iconic “Jeremy” clip and the pretty-great thriller Arlington Road, for an hour-long film called Lone. Wolfe wrote the movie, and all of the dialog comes from the lyrics to her 2013 album Pain Is Beauty. Wolfe’s new video for “Feral Love” serves as an excerpt from the movie. There are flashes of nudity, so be warned, and the whole thing is creepily badass. Werewolves, You’re Next/Wyatt Family-style animal masks, and Wolfe’s own death-mask swagger all feature prominently.

2/10/2014

Annie - “Russian Kiss” Official Video (NSFW)



Amid all of the controversy surrounding the Sochi Olympics, Norwegian pop singer Annie has decided to add her voice to the mix. She’s teamed up with New York-based artist Bjarne Melgaard and director Richard Kern to create “Russian Kiss,” a protest video that aims to challenge the Putin administration’s stance on LGBT rights and encourage people to boycott this year’s Olympic games. The video is a little heavy-handed, but the song itself is great: a slow-building, slick Euro-pop jam that sounds like it could be a leftover from last year’s excellent A&R EP.

Lily Allen - “Air Balloon” (Official Video)



In Lily Allen’s new video for her bubbly new single “Air Balloon,” she dresses like a 1997-era candy raver and hangs out with a zebra, a cheetah, and a swarm of CGI butterflies. She also goes into space. I have no idea what any of it means, but it’s fun, and it seems unlikely to start any fights, the way her “Hard Out Here” video recently did.

Watch The Flaming Lips & Sean Lennon Cover “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” On Letterman



David Letterman continued his week-long tribute to the Fab Four with a performance from the Flaming Lips, who were joined by Sean Lennon to cover “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” Throughout the week, Broken Bells, Sting, and Lenny Kravitz have also graced the Late Night stage to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival in America. Lauryn Hill will perform the final show tonight and CBS will air The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles on Sunday.

Broken Bells with Ringo Starr: "And I Love Her"(David Letterman Show) 


Prodigy - “IMDKV” (NSFW-ish)



Prodigy – “IMDKV” (NSFW-ish) (Dir. Tha Profitt)

Prodigy more or less brought rap videos into the internet age with his awesomely horrific “Mac 10 Handle” video, so when he points a blood-crusted spiked bat at the camera, I pay attention.

Watch The Russian Police Choir Perform “Get Lucky” At Sochi Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony


As they famously did last year (which you can catch in our “Get Lucky” supercut) the Russian Police Choir performed Daft Punk’s Grammy winning megahit during the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics. It’s pretty silly and charming, and many of the policemen are sporting hats that are sure to make Pharrell extremely jealous. Watch below or head to nbcolympics.com for more.

The Julie Ruin - “Goodnight, Goodbye” (Official Video)



The first video from the Julie Ruin, Kathleen Hanna’s new band, was for “Oh Come On,” and it was a fun and riotous burst of color. But their new “Goodnight, Goodbye” video goes a very different route. This one is all grainy, warm Super-8 footage of the band playing a show and spending time in Olympia, Washington, Hanna’s old stomping grounds. I’ve spent enough time in Olympia to know that Hanna is like a god there, but surprisingly, she doesn’t spend the entire video running from hordes of screaming Evergreen students. Instead, she and her band just kind of hang out and have fun. Silly Cinnamon directs.

2/06/2014

Watch Bob Dylan's Super Bowl Commercial for Chrysler (Extended Cut)



A great many Super Bowl viewers were shocked to see Bob Dylan in a Chrysler commercial last night, but they really shouldn't have been. This was far from his first appearance in a televised ad, and it wasn't even the only time his music was heard in one last night (his 1966 classic "I Want You" appeared in a commercial for Chobani yogurt).

Back in 1965, a reporter at a San Francisco press conference asked Dylan what product he'd ever think about endorsing. The singer promptly responded with two words: "women's garments." It got a good laugh, but 39 years later he fulfilled that prophecy when he appeared alongside model Adriana Lima in an ad for Victoria's Secret. "Was I not supposed to do that?" he snapped at Rolling Stone the following year. "I wish I had seen it. Maybe I'd have something to say about it. I don't see that kind of stuff. That's for other people to see and make up what they will."

The 2004 Victoria's Secret ad – which used his 1997 song "Love Sick" — was Dylan's first physical appearance in a commercial, though back in the 1990s Richie Havens' cover of "The Times They Are A'Changin'" was used in an ad for a Canadian bank. Around that same time, Apple used a 1963 photo of Dylan in their "Think Different" ad campaign.

Last night's Chrysler ad wasn't even Dylan's first appearance in a car commercial. In 2007, he appeared in an ad for the Cadillac Escalade, and was even shown driving the sport utility vehicle. That angered many people, but it's hard to imagine that Dylan cared one bit. If anything, the negative feedback probably only encouraged him to do another one.


Jorge Elbrose (Jorge Elbrecht & Ariel Pink) - “Called To Ring” (Official Video)



Directed by Jorge Elbrecht
Co-director: Ron Winter
Producer: Mindy Lubert
DP: Jake Magee
1st AC: Bayley Sweitzer
2nd AC/DIT: Govinda Angulo
PA: Andrew Krasniak, Kurt Csolak
Stylist: Kat Typaldos
Animation: Zach Shukan/Omega Darling
Face Rig: Drew Arnold/Show Studio

Featuring:

Holly Hayden
Holland Brown
Stephanie Levy
Rebecca Fourteau
Dani Griffiths
Kristy Muniz
Adele Thibodeaux
Natalie Mering
Sonja Mauro

Location: The Otherside Studio

Special thanks to Alejandro Cardenas, Tim Koh, Daniel Cardenas, Ghost Robot, Hello World, Handheld Films, Lauren and Mike at the Otherside Studio.

Tree - “Like Whoa” (OfficialVideo)



Chicago is a truly great city, but it’s currently deep into a winter that sounds incomprehensibly hellish, and the town could probably use some reason to feel good about itself. So I give you the raspy-voiced Chicago rapper/producer Tree’s video for “Like Whoa.” Tree’s The MCTreeG EP earned Mixtape Of The Week last week, and the video capitalizes on his plainspoken blue-collar charm, showing him in both his hometown’s grimier slums and in its sparkling, beautiful downtown. If you’ve spent some time in the city, it will make you want to go back.

Andrew W.K. & Lil Bub - “Star Party Animal” Video



Human party machine Andrew W.K. and celebrity cat Lil Bub both seem like certain corners of the internet made flesh, so it makes sense to see them, um, duetting on a new song called “Star Party Animal.” A music video for this particular jam, a Meat Loaf-esque operatic piano banger, will air on the Animal Planet show Lil Bub’s Special Special this weekend, but lucky you; you get to watch it right now.

Eternal Summers - “Gouge” (Official Video)



With their new full-length record The Drop Beneath hitting shelves next month, Eternal Summers have tapped their single “Gouge” for a music video rich with imagery. Lead vocalist Nicole Yun ponders some heavy lyrics (“Gouge my eyes out”) in front of projector screens displaying various serene nature scenes; and facial closeups and video overlays create a dream-like haze over the whole affair.

2/04/2014

Tomas Barfod - “Pulsing” (Feat. Nina K) (Official Video)



There’s a video for “Pulsing,” directed by Cherise Payne, which cuts between a pretty young couple spending time together and shots of meat and fish being butchered. It’s grotesque, but also difficult to look away from.

Snowbird - "All Wishes Are Ghosts" (Official Video)



Snowbird, the project from Simon Raymonde (of the Cocteau Twins) and singer Stephanie Dosen, have given us some extremely dreamy music since first arriving with “Porcelain” last year. Today, they pair the song “All Wishes Are Ghosts” with a video that has some ghosts of its own. Though it doesn’t quite explain to the viewer why its two main characters are in the strange situation they are in, it grips you nonetheless.

Chastity Belt – “Full” (Official Video)



Directed by Shaun Libman and shot in exquisite black and white by Eleanor Petry, it’s a pleasure to see and hear. Watch it below.

BOYTOY - “Visits” Video



BOYTOY are a New York trio who released the sugary-sweet “Visits” last year. Now they have a new video for the song, starring Horatio Sanz. Directed by Shae Mermis and Glenn Van Dyke, Sanz plays a guy living in a dirty apartment with his dog who falls in love while mowing his lawn.

Andy Winter - “Uncountably Infinite” Video (NSFW)



After releasing his latest full length solo album "Incomprehensible" on The End Records in January 2013, Andy Winter (Winds, Age of Silence, Sculptured) now returns with his first ever music video; an artistic collaboration by various talents in the realm of music, film and fashion.

"As above, So Below" is the major tenet of the story. The concept was inspired by numerology and the mystical relationship numbers have in relation to existence and magic. The video follows the creation and destruction of two creatures called Cause and Effect. We watch as they chase each other above and below, forever tied in an endless loop of creation and destruction. Cause and Effect are inseparable, and together they function as one infinite character. The styling of the video and creative direction aspires to pay homage to black metal and the occult, while being heavily drenched in unearthly technicolor, flesh/plastic and the divine feminine spirit.

Musically speaking "Uncountably Infinite" is a stylistic departure from Andy Winter's usual style of subdued and progressive art-rock. The sound takes on a more metallic edge with harsher and rougher tones, featuring a crunchy wall of guitars courtesy of Andy Winter himself, complimented by the haunting and ravenous vocals of Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), throbbing low end tones from bassist Jason William Walton (Agalloch, Sculptured), groovy and sometimes funky drum foundations by Jan Axel von Blomberg (Mayhem, Arcturus, Winds), and a shrieking/shredding guitar solo by Donald Anderson (Agalloch, Sculptured).

Starring in the video is actress and burlesque dancer Tristan Risk, most recently featured in the cult horror film "American Mary" by The Soska Sisters. Other contributors working behind the scenes to make this video come to fruition include cinematographer Michael D. Kroetsch, production assistant Matthew Burditt, makeup artist Betty Draven, director/fashion designer Misty Greer, mixing engineer Shaun Thingvold and mastering engineer Maor Appelbaum.

Drive-By Truckers - “Made Up English Oceans” Official Video



Made Up English Oceans
Recorded Live on November 19, 2013
at the historic Lyric Theatre in Birmingham, AL

Da Mafia 6ix - “Break The Law” Video



Last year, former Three 6 Mafia co-leader DJ Paul rounded up his old group’s entire original lineup, minus Juicy J, and renamed the crew Da Mafia 6ix. They released the chaotic, cathartic, fun-as-hell mixtape 6ix Commantments before Lord Infamous, Paul’s brother and fellow Mafia member, died suddenly. You might expect the new video for the 6ix Commandments track “Break The Law” to be solemn, but that wouldn’t work for that song, or this group. So instead, it’s a messy, horror-tinged, low-budget rap attack cut with (seemingly genuine!) footage of shootings and riots and beheadings. Guys in Satanic Michael Myers masks stand in for Infamous, which is how Infamous would’ve presumably wanted it.

2/03/2014

Xiu Xiu - “Stupid In The Dark” (Official Video)



It says a lot about Xiu Xiu’s excellent new album Angel Guts: Red Classroom that the video for first single “Stupid In The Dark” is almost playful. The Amir Shoucri-directed clip captures a grisly murder in disturbing detail, but not nearly as disturbing compared to much of the subject matter and sound of “Dark” and the recently released “Lawrence Liquors.” Someone getting beaten, knifed, drowned, and choked doesn’t even leave a dent compared to Jamie Stewart’s breathy admission of “Once we felt sorry for you people … but not that sorry,” over a single drum machine that stabs more than it beats. Xiu Xiu has been evolving and changing a lot over every album recently, and this reminds you that they’re in an especially good place right now, even if that place is horrific beyond description.

Odonis Odonis - “New Obsession” Video



Along with other Toronto bands such as Greys, Absolutely Free, and PUP, Odonis Odonis have earned some wider attention in the last year. Today they release the Cam Tomsett-directed video for “New Obsession,” the first single off their upcoming album Hard Boiled, Soft Boiled. The first half of the record is heavy and industrial, much like the first half of this video is deeply disturbing (and potentially upsetting to some); but as the twist makes things a little more lighthearted, the “soft boiled” second half of the album is lush and sweet.

Angel Olsen - "Hi-Five" (Official Video)



Angel Olsen’s sophomore LP, Burn Your Fire For No Witness, is out later this month, and based on the songs we’ve thus far heard from the thing (including four new ones last week on NPR), it’s going to be a good one. We first heard the spare, noir-ish “Hi-Five” in early January, and now, we’ve got a video to go with it. The Zia Anger-directed clip perfectly matches the reverb-y track; it’s sultry and spooky, mostly focusing tight on the entrancing Olsen. Watch.

Watch NIN, QOTSA, Dave Grohl, & Lindsey Buckingham’s Uncut Grammys Rehearsal



After the Grammys cut off Nine Inch Nails, Queens Of The Stone Age, Lindsey Buckingham, and Dave Grohl’s superjam with a sponsor ad, pissing off Trent Reznor, which confused Vampire Weekend, we can finally watch the complete performance that was meant to happen. This rehearsal footage of “Copy Of A” leading into “My God Is The Sun” is pretty damn cool, and gives an idea of what the current Nine Inch Nails live show looks like.

St. Vincent - “Digital Witness” (Official Video)



Annie Clark bka St. Vincent first delivered “Digital Witness” — the second single from her self-titled forthcoming fourth LP — earlier this month; the brassy, dance-y track very much reflected the ample time Clark has recently spent collaborating with David Byrne (to my ear anyway; there’s also plenty of “Steam”/”Sledgehammer”-style Peter Gabriel in here, too). Now, she’s released the song’s Chino Moya-directed video accompaniment, which still feels really Talking Heads-y to me: all bold colors, jerky movements, geometric lines, and prominent shoulders. It’s a stylish, bizarre, cool video befitting the stylish, bizarre, cool song. Watch.

Minor Alps - “Waiting For You” (Official Video)



Last year, Matthew Caws of Nada Surf and Juliana Hatfield formed Minor Alps and put out the record Get There. Today they’ve shared this understated video following two kindred spirits as they spend time in the city. They’re separate throughout the video, though it’s edited in a way that suggests a special intimacy between them.

together PANGEA - “Offer” Official Video (NSFW)



LA rockers together PANGEA released their third full-length Badillac last week and they’ve followed it up with a video for “Offer,” which sees the band getting into some heavy tour shenanigans like shotgunning beers, getting flashed, and making out with each other. The video was directed by a duo known as Lonely Highways.

The Love Language "Faithbreaker" (Official Music Video)



In the video for “Faithbreaker,” the Love Language present a stripped-down version of the song, turning their brand of woodsy rock into a melancholic drawl that’s more appropriate for the video’s cabin-in-the-dead-of-winter setting. The song is off their third LP, Ruby Red, which came out last July.

Meek Mill - “Heaven Or Hell” (Feat. Jadakiss & Guordan Banks) Video



On “Heaven Or Hell,” a track from his great Dreamchasers 3 mixtape, the Philly rap animal Meek Mill flipped the Luniz classic “I Got 5 On It” into a gritty street-life lament. This was a smart thing to do. He also recruited craggy O.G. Jadakiss and R&B singer Guordan Banks for help, and that decision worked out well, too. Meek has now made a sad, intense, wintry video for the track, one that involves lots of boarded-up houses and at least one shotgun murder.

Bleeding Rainbow - "So You Know" (Official Video)



One of my favorite albums of the young year is Interrupt, the shoegaze-inflected, ’90s alt-inspired turn from the always-morphing Philly rock band Bleeding Rainbow. The public’s first taste of the record was “So You Know,” a midtempo number that clangs, clatters, and shines in especially harmonic fashion. Now that song has a video by director Japhy Riddle that involves some sort of love story, miniature facsimiles assembled from old photos, a typewriter, and other mysterious elements to be parsed.

Chromeo - “Come Alive” (Feat. Toro Y Moi) Official Video



Chromeo’s video for “Come Alive,” their dinky synth-funk jam with Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick, takes obvious inspiration from the lovably cheesed-out 1987 movie Mannequin and from the cartoonish videos that held down the era of MTV from around the time Mannequin came out. In the clip, Chromeo’s Dave 1 plays a frustrated casanova, and Bundick plays a janitor, and they both end up romancing plastic figurines who have come to life. Alex Southam directs the goofily fun video.

Shakira ft. Rihanna - "Can't Remember to Forget You" (Official Video)



Look, I’m sorry. I’m not proud of this. But certain things leave me absolutely helpless. And those things are all over this video.

Music video by Shakira feat. Rihanna performing Can't Remember to Forget You. (C) 2014 Ace Entertainment S.ar.l.