5/28/2015

The New Pornographers - “Champions Of Red Wine” (Official Video)



Last year, Canadian power-pop all-stars the New Pornographers released their Brill Bruisers album and made excellent, eyeball-grabbing videos for their songs “War On The East Coast” and “Dancehall Domine.” Their new clip for “Champions Of Red Wine” is a different sort of thing. It’s a character study about a middle-aged man, lost and drunk and horny and alone, staggering around Havana and getting himself in trouble. Directors Leblanc + Cudmore, who also did the “Dancehall Domine” clip, filmed the video on location in Cuba, and despite everything that happens to this one bum, the video will make you wish you were there. Watch the video and read some words about it from co-director Scott Cudmore.

Cudmore writes:
Obviously there’s a debt to the Paris, Texas locale of peep shows here and that was sort of the jumping off point for the video. I had this idea of a rambling, drunk loner in a foreign environment – somebody who can’t really connect to anything except for on a very superficial level. All the interactions he has are forced, more like transactions than anything. It’s a portrait of this guy, a few hours, a couple of days, in his life as he flails wildly around – his only means of communication being physical. The video is a fragment of this character. We only know him in the moment, not where he comes from or where he is going.

Owen Pallett - “The Passions” (Official Video)



“The Passions,” a song off of Owen Pallett’s 2013 full-length In Conflict, is a song about forbidden desire and passions falling to ruin. It’s a stunning, spine-chilling piece work that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand-straight if you listen to it alone, without distraction. Now, Pallett has shared a visual interpretation of the track that seamlessly integrates his words and fragile arrangements with its imagery. Created by Brian Vu, it’s a nuanced and subtly sexual abstraction that he says was “filmed by friends and I in familiar places.”

Kevin Morby - “Parade” (Official Video)



In the time since he left chilled-out folk-psych experimentalists Woods to strike out on his own, Kevin Morby has solidified his reputation as one of the most consistently winsome songwriters in the underground. Dead Oceans has noticed: The Indiana label, home to prominent modern folk-rockers ranging from Strand Of Oaks to Ryley Walker to the Tallest Man On Earth, has signed Morby and will release his third solo LP next year. In the meantime, Morby is still kicking out videos from last year’s Woodsist release Still Life, including today’s clip for lead single “Parade.” The song is built around an exultant yet comfortable groove worthy of the Band, accented by pretty piano lines, soulful backing vocals, and occasional flurries of surprise sax. As director Elise Tyler explains, her visual accompaniment functions as a documentary of Morby’s version of NYC:
The process was a complete collaboration with Kevin. He wanted to document the people and places that make up his New York, and I had the honor to capture it for him. I wanted to feature the quieter places and moments that can sometimes get lost in the noise of the city, which I think also reflects Kevin’s nature as an artist and individual.

Faith Healer - “Canonized” (Official Video)



Jessica Jalbert makes meticulous brocade psychedelia as Faith Healer, and her debut album under that name, Cosmic Troubles, is one of the year’s most cohesive records. Today we’re premiering the video for “Canonized,” a clip that features half of the tight-knit Edmonton music scene holding a Tarot reading and drinking wine spliced with shots of a lone figure trying to start a fire in the Mill Creek Ravine. It includes Caity Fisher (of Tee-Tahs and Caity Fisher & The Wastoids), Ian Waddell (of Diamond Mind), Mitch Holtby (Mitchmatic, Faith Healer), Layne L’Heureux (Maude), Ben Crossman (Ben Disaster, Love Electric, Tee-Tahs), and of course, Jessica Jalbert herself. It was directed by Mike Robertson and you can watch the whole crew’s oddball debauchery unfold.

5/27/2015

Nocturnal Sunshine - “Believe” (Feat. Chelou) Video



The UK producer Maya Jane Coles, so good at making sparse and haunted dance music, just released her self-titled debut under her Nocturnal Sunshine alias. On the early single “Believe,” she teamed up with the London indie band Chelou to make something cold and despondent. In the track’s new video, from directors the Fashtons, a girl sits alone in a white room, lip-syncing the song, as effects erupt all around her.

Django Django - “Shake & Tremble” (Official Video)



Scotland’s Django Django released their sophomore LP Born Under Saturn at the beginning of the month, and as Tom pointed out in an earlier post, the band has skirted their post-punk roots in favor of psychedelia-tinged, jangling instrumentals. In short: they sound a lot more like what their name suggests. Pete G.D. directed a new video for the song “Shake & Tremble,” featuring the guys performing in a plastic rainforest made to look low-budget.

Jenny Lewis - “She’s Not Me” (Official Video)



Just yesterday, Jenny Lewis and Vanessa Bayer were joking about Troop Beverly Hills, the 1989 kids movie that Lewis appeared in when she was a child actor. Turns out the movie was on their mind for a reason: Lewis’ new self-directed video for “She’s Not Me,” the most absolutely magnificent song on her 2014 instant classic The Voyager, features an arrested Lewis hallucinating parodies of her various acting roles including The Golden Girls, The Wizard, Hellville, and, yes, Troop Beverly Hills. A bunch of Lewis’ celebrity friends including Bayer, Fred Armisen, Leo Fitzpatrick, Zosia Mamet, and Feist show up to bring the dream sequences to life.

Two Sheds - “You Get To Me” (Official Video)



Two Sheds released their lovely sophomore record Assembling yesterday, and today, they’re sharing a video for album highlight “You Get To Me.” The video, which is beautifully shot and framed by director James Niebuhr, provides a small glimpse into the lives of a number of different characters. You can feel the aching and longing coming from each one, as they look off into the distance, unsure what to do next. But slowly, they’re overcome by the restorative power of music, letting all their worries melt away for just a few minutes. Two Sheds is good music for that kind of emotional drifting — the band has also put together an interactive website for their album that operates in a similar vein, as you get to explore Hotel Two Sheds while different tracks from the record play in the background and provide an immersive experience. You can check out the website here and watch the “You Get To Me” video.

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz - “Human Sadness” (Official Video)



After months of teasing and a trailer a few weeks back, Julian Casablancas + The Voidz have finally unveiled the video for their Tyranny opus “Human Sadness.” The 13-minute-long short film, which was directed by Warren Fu and Nicholaus Goosen, features hot rods, seedy motel rooms, a war zone, a hurricane, and even more forms of destruction. It’s epic and a little all over the place.

Ariel Pink - "I Need a Minute" (Official Music Video)



Ariel Pink recently contributed the zooted, staggering pop song “I Need A Minute” to the soundtrack of Heaven Knows What, a new movie about heroin addiction based on Mad Love In New York City, a memoir from Arielle Holmes. Holmes stars in the movie, and she also stars alongside Pink in the new video for “I Need A Minute.” In the clip, Pink and Holmes make a grand tour of New York’s public bathrooms, using the fleeting privacy they offer to snuggle up. Pink recorded much of the video on his phone, holding it vertical like a savage. I sincerely hope that nobody was waiting to piss while they were filming this.

The Weeknd - “The Hills” (Official Video) (



A bunch of new Weeknd tracks leaked yesterday that pointed towards a bigger, glossier sound for Abel Tesfaye, with songs produced by Max Martin and a decidedly Michael Jackson-inspired bend. “The Hills” — a song that he debuted at Coachella in April — is not from those sessions, and instead falls right in line with his most recent singles like “Often” and “Earned It.” It’s big-budget R&B with a flair for melodrama, and the new track is accompanied by a video that follows Tesfaye out of a crashed car and into an empty mansion.

Gold Star - “Learning The Blues” (Official Video)



Learning The Blues was produced and mixed by Nicolas Jodoin (BRMC, The Morlocks) in Los Angeles and mastered by Pete Lyman (No Age, BRMC, White Fence)

Watch A 10-Year-Old Tinashe Sing “The Times They Are A-Changin'” To Bob Dylan



Before she broke through as an airy R&B star, Tinashe was a child actress. Quite recently, in fact, she was playing the kid’s girlfriend on Two And A Half Men. And as it turns out, one of her early roles offered some indication of the singer she’d become. Tinashe had a short appearance in Masked & Anonymous, the strange and deeply indulgent movie that Bob Dylan made in 2003. (Dylan didn’t direct the movie, but he starred in it and wrote it, and it seems safe to say that nobody involved in making the movie told him “no” at any point.) At one point in the movie, a creepy Southern-accented John Goodman introduces a little girl to Dylan, and that little girl sings him a fairly lovely a cappella version of his iconic song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” That little girl is Tinashe.

5/25/2015

Nicki Minaj - “The Night Is Still Young” (Official Video)



Nicki Minaj has been teasing the video for one of The Pinkprint‘s few club bangers “The Night Is Still Young” on Instagram and Twitter for a while now, and today she’s released it exclusively to Tidal. Just like the “Feeling Myself” video, though, it quickly made its way onto the internet. I still wish she would give “Four Door Aventador” a slick car video with tons of dancing, but I’m into her Eurodance vibes too. She’s sporting the same outfit from that incredible Instagram from the other night, and this video is chock full of kitsch that’s reminiscent of dear old Nicki’s technicolor alien-pop asethetic.

Watch Paul McCartney Play “Temporary Secretary” Live For The First Time, “I Saw Her Standing There” With Dave Grohl



Paul McCartney played the first of two shows at London’s O2 arena last night, and he had a few surprises in store for the audience. One of them was the live debut of “Temporary Secretary,” one of the singles from his 1980 album McCartney II. And another was Dave Grohl himself, who came out during McCartney’s first encore to duet and play along with “I Saw Her Standing There.”

Hear Another Preview Of Eminem’s “Phenomenal” In Draymond Green Beats Commercial



Eminem seems to have settled comfortably into the habit of debuting new music via commercial. He used a Beats by Dre commercial to announce his return in 2013, and he recently debuted a new song in a trailer for the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring boxing movie Southpaw. Today, he’s returned to the Beats format, sharing a clip of “Phenomenal” in another Beats ad that features Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors.

Juicy J - “Already” (Feat. Rae Sremmurd) Video



The kids in Rae Sremmurd weren’t born when Juicy J started his indestructible career, but somehow it makes perfect sense to hear them on a song together in 2015. Rae Sremmurd guest on “Already,” an ode to being faded and horny from Juicy’s solid Blue Dream & Lean 2 mixtape. And in the video, the rap elder and his young friends spend time with a bunch of women and a few hilariously expensive-looking motorized vehicles. Gabriel Hart directs.

Towkio - “Reflection” (Official Video)



Towkio is the latest member of Chicago’s SaveMoney crew to pop off. His new mixtape .Wav Theory is a turbulent mix of cascading, joyful tracks and tense downers. “Reflection” is one of the latter, as I noted when the song itself dropped, and now it’s gotten a video to further explore all that sadness. Directed by Peter Collins Campbell and Towkio himself, it follows a very familiar cast of characters through a drug-addled house party. I’m pretty sure there’s a Chance The Rapper cameo in there too if you watch closely. Given that the chorus references cocaine, it’s no surprise to see the drug show up in the clip. Trigger warning: The very end of the video also alludes to rape.

Algiers - "Black Eunuch" (Official Video)



Algiers were one of 2015’s first Bands To Watch, a trans-Atlantic gospel-punk trio of Southern ex-pats who make music steeped in revolutionary ideas. Their rage against the machine reaches a fever pitch in the jeering, flickering “Black Eunuch” video. It looks like a candlelit prayer service that devolved into a protest performance, the trio wailing on their instruments and literally losing themselves in the moment, as their images fade into those of the stones surrounding them. The video was created by the band and directed by bassist Lee Tesche.

5/21/2015

Tame Impala - “‘Cause I’m A Man” (Official Video)



Tame Impala have shared a video for their Currents single “‘Cause I’m A Man.” It’s all done in slick 3D animation, and explores a world full of empty suit men that take on different heads depending on their situation — disco ball, wedding ring, and roses all float above their disembodied figures at one point. Specifically, it seems to chart the course of a single relationship, from the loneliness before to the first encounter, marriage and consummation, and the struggles that come even after that.

Eddi Front - “Elevator”(Official Video)



Eddi Front’s “Elevator” glides in like a dream. Ivana Carrescia hasn’t missed a beat in the three quiet years since her debut EP, picking up the same woozy, understated headspace that made her first few songs so memorable. The video for the track is a beautiful, evocative thing. It begins with toes curled, peeking out from under the sheets — a cold winter’s morning, not being able to get out of bed. The act of stretching out after a restless sleep, but feeling no relief. We follow our protagonist to the woods, yarn braided through her hair. She tries to gain some control over her senseless surroundings, tying the string around her hands and playing puppetmaster over the water. Bubbles pop, a dull ache sets in. Craig Murray, who directed the clip, opts for all choppy cuts and stuttering, slow-motion captures — it feels like not being able to breathe, looking for escape.

Hudson Mohawke - “Indian Steps” (Feat. Antony) & “Scud Books” Video



The UK producer Hudson Mohawke is a few weeks away from releasing Lantern, his first new solo album in what feels like forever. We’ve already heard the early tracks “Ryderz” and “Very First Step,” with Irfane. And given that HudMo has lately put in work with people like Kanye West and Pusha T, it’s not a huge surprise to learn that the album features R&B stars like Miguel and Jhené Aiko. It’s a bit of a surprise, though, to hear HudMo teaming up with Antony Hegarty on the warm, hazy track “Indian Steps.” But HudMo, along with Oneohtrix Point Never, also co-produced Antony’s forthcoming album Hopelessness, and these two just work well together. As Pitchfork points out, BBC Radio 1 DJ Benji B just dedicated an entire show to HudMo and Lantern, and the show features a number of unheard Lantern tracks, including the title track, “Kettles,” and “Scud Books.” But the song you’ll probably want to hear first is “Indian Steps.” It starts around the 1:26 mark on the show; head over here to hear it, or you can check out a radio-rip embed of it below. Meanwhile, HudMo has also shared a video for the streaky instrumental “Scud Books,”.

Watch Foo Fighters Perform “Everlong” For Letterman’s Final Show



David Letterman wrapped up a 33-year-long late-night career last night, and brought out one of his favorite bands to do his favorite song to put a capper on the night. Foo Fighters — who did a week-long residency on the show last year after the release of Sonic Highways — played “Everlong,” which they performed on his show back in 2000 when Letterman returned from an extended absence after heart surgery. Before the performance, he talked about how much the song helped him with his recovery. For much of the night, the long-time host opted for humor, bringing out a bevy of stars for his final Top 10 list, and looking back on some of his favorite moments, but the final “Everlong” performance was certainly sentimental enough. The song soundtracked an extended montage of vintage Late Night clips, paying tribute to a man who shaped the genre over the past few decades. Watch the final Letterman Late Show musical performance.

Kevin Gates - “Khaza” (Official Video)



Potential dog fetishist and cousin fucker Kevin Gates put out a song called “Khaza” a few days ago, and he’s followed that up with a homemade video for the track. It seems to have been shot entirely at his mansion by the water in Louisiana — he hangs out with his crew, records the vocals to the track on his deck, raps into the mirror, and hangs out with his dog.

Snoop Dogg - “California Roll” (Feat. Stevie Wonder & Pharrell) Video



Stevie Wonder has been recording a lot of collaborations lately, and it’s gotten to the point where (not joking here) Jason Derulo just put him on a song with Keith Urban. But if anyone can recognize the honor and power of a Stevie Wonder guest appearance, it’s the old soul-head duo of Snoop Dogg and Pharrell. Wonder shows up on “California Roll,” a track from Snoop’s new Pharrell-produced album Bush, and now he’s in the video, too. In the pretty great clip, a ’40s movie theater gets taken on a vision of the afro-futurist days to come, complete with flying coupes and robotic pyramids. It’s a sunshiny blast of absurdity, and you can watch.

Ducktails - “Headbanging In The Mirror” (Official Video)



Real Estate member Matt Mondanile also makes magnificently moody, ambient psychedelia as Ducktails, and today he’s released the video for “Headbanging In The Mirror.” The track is a leisurely, meandering thing, and Mondanile also travels in the Rose Schlossberg-directed clip, wandering around Los Angeles in his car. At one point he plays his guitar while sitting on a roof, at another he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, but surprisingly he doesn’t ever seem to headbang in the mirror. I was really hoping they’d get that literal, but it’s still a cool video. It makes me miss driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles all the time when I was in college.

Heather Woods Broderick - “Wyoming” (Official Video)



The lead single off Heather Woods Broderick’s new solo album Glider, “A Call For Distance,” is sprawling and pristine, loping through New Age, jazz, and folk with ease. Broderick followed it up with “Wyoming,” an even more expansive, woozy song that evokes the flat, hot plains of its namesake state. My mom grew up in Sheridan, Wyoming, so we visited there once when I was really little. Since I was raised in Oregon, it was shocking to me that I could see flat, arid land stretching on for miles all around, with no mountains, trees or bodies of water in between. “Wyoming” taps into that beautiful rural desolation, building to almost a wail at the end. It’s such a gorgeous, fuzzed-out reflection on a lifeless landscape; she manages to capture the beauty and harmony of the desolation as well as the loneliness.

FFS - “Johnny Delusional” (Official Video)



The Franz Ferdinand/Sparks collab FFS have released a video for their darkly clever dance-punk/New Wave hybrid “Johnny Delusional.” The clip casts Alex Kapranos and Russell Mael as dweeby office drones flailing for attention from the ladies in their vicinity. It’s doing its job of enticing me to check out FFS’ self-titled LP, which is coming next month. ABϟCDϟCD direct.

Lieutenant - “Believe The Squalor” (Official Video)



Lieutenant is the side project of Foo Fighters/Sunny Day Real Estate bassist Nate Mendel, and back in January we premiered the downtempo, melancholic single “Believe The Squalor.” It’s a soothing, spiraling track and indicative of the rest of the album If I Kill This Thing We’re All Going To Eat For A Week, which features a whole host of high-profile collaborators, including this song’s guests Page Hamilton (Helmet) on guitar and vocals from Josiah Johnson (The Head And The Heart). Today the band has released an accompanying video for the song that features figures from the black metal scene playing those parts: Pete Majors and Sandor G.F. of Harassor, Erik Kluiber of Ironaut on bass and Eli Santana, also of Holy Grail. Mendel said he was assembling his touring band for Lieutenant when he came up with the video’s campy, horror movie-style concept:
I was in the brackish zone between a solo project and a band and wasn’t sure of what the identity of the band would ultimately be. I thought, ‘Why not play that our by creating a performance video using the 100% incorrect musicians, in this case a black metal band?’ I texted the idea to a friend of mine, Jim Rota, who was a producer on the Sonic Highways project, and also fronts the metal band Fireball Ministry. He responded with a photo of Pete Majors covered in stage blood, on stage with his band Harassor.”
And that is how this gloriously over-the-top thing came together. It was directed by Matt Kubas.

Migos - “Origin” (Official Video)



Legal issues are making it a little harder to predict when we might get to hear YRN: The Album, the official debut from Atlanta rap stars Migos. But the group continues to pump out music, and now they’ve got a new track called “Origin,” with a video attached. On the song, the members of the group kinda-charmingly tell the story of their up-from-nothing rise when they aren’t talking shit about their money. And the video, from director Gabriel Hart, combines archival footage with that classic “Flava In Ya Ear”-style rapping-against-a-white-background video.

Watch The Full Trailer For Amy, Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse Documentary



Amy Winehouse’s tragic death at 27 is one of the greatest losses the music world has seen. To honor her legacy, the BAFTA award-winning director of Senna, Asif Kapadia, has constructed a documentary about the singer mostly comprising unreleased archival footage. We’ve seen a short teaser for the doc, but now a full official trailer for Amy is here. “The more people see of me, the more they’ll realize is all I’m good for is making music,” she laughs at one point. Another incredible moment to relive is her complete and utter amazement at her Grammy win. From the trailer, it looks like this documentary will be a thorough and worthy tribute of the singer.

Meek Mill - “Monster” (Official Video)



Meek Mill’s new single “Monster” was already a total banger, but it just got even better. Director Spike Jordan‘s new “Monster” video goes all the way period-piece, with Meek and his friends staging an ’80s-style “Welcome Home Meek Mill” party at a roller rink. The time-specific fashion is absolutely on point, and you can just see how much fun everyone involved had making this thing.

5/20/2015

Night Beds - “Tide Teeth” (Official Video)



Turns out last month’s Night Beds’ single “Tide Teeth” was the precursor to a new full-length. That new song was a pretty big change in sound from his 2013 debut, Country Sleep, trading in woodsy folk for slippery late-night-drive R&B, and the new album seems like it will be more of the same: Winston Yellen even cites his love for J Dilla in the press release. The new album is called Ivywild, and the announcement comes paired with a slick new video for “Tide Teeth,” which follows around a woman who eventually reaches her breaking point and lights everything up in flames. Sounds a lot like what Yellen is doing to his old sound!

Alex Winston - “Careless” (Official Video)



Alex Winston’s best single was “Sister Wife” off a 2011 EP of the same name. It’s what drew me into the New York-via-Detroit singer’s world, a weirdly catchy pop song about incest that was accompanied by this equally bizarre video. Winston manipulates her voice from bratty bubblegum to dramatic diva in one fell swoop, a quality that makes her songs endlessly fascinating even if they often follow pretty standard pop songwriting structures. Since that EP and her logistically troubled debut album King Con, she’s put out the one-off single “101 Vultures,”but now her second album is officially on its way. We premiered the lead single “Careless” back in December and it’s a pounding, urgent track that possibly vies with “Sister Wife” as my favorite Alex Winston song. She also shared the breathy, anthemic “We Got Nothing” a few months ago, and today, “Careless” gets an oddball video update: Winston in a senior center hanging out with much, much older men as they play chess, swim laps, and get their picture taken. The video was done by BANGS and directed by Allie Avital Tsypin.

The Mountain Goats - “The Legend Of Chavo Guerrero” Video (Feat. Rob Corddry & Chavo Guerrero)



Earlier this year, when the Mountain Goats were getting ready to release their great wrestling-themed album Beat The Champ, I took frontman John Darnielle to his first pro wrestling show in 35 years. He didn’t want me to put any details in the story, but he was getting ready to get his hair cut into a mullet the next day so he could make a video for first single “The Legend Of Chavo Guerrero.” Well, the mullet is great, but it’s maybe the 12th most awesome thing in the video. For the clip, director Scott Jacobson has made everything look like a grainy old wrestling broadcast, and the video’s cast lip-syncs Darnielle’s lyrics. That cast includes comedy figures like Rob Corddry and Mountain Goats drummer Jon Wurster, as well as indie wrestlers like Joey Ryan and Ray Rosas. Darnielle gets to riff on CM Punk’s famous pipe bomb promo, and he also sells some punches from Ryan. And the video also features Chavo Guerrero, Sr., the subject of the song and Darnielle’s childhood hero. Guerrero is 66 and still spry enough to throw a bodyslam. This video absolutely rules, and you can watch it and read some words from Darnielle below.

Darnielle writes:
I consider myself pretty decent with words, but I don’t think I can find the right ones to say what a profound experience it was to hear Chavo say “any time, brother” over the phone from his home in Arizona, and to meet up with him in L.A. and get stories from him about his dad Gory and about the old days at the Olympic, and to finally shoot this video, in which he rescues me from a certain beatdown even though my character’s playing the heel. I don’t wanna stand between you all and and Scott Jacobson’s awesome video much longer, but before you go check it out, please join me in raising a glass to Chavo Guerrero: champion not only in name but in his word and deed, and now a friend. The video features Chavo and me and Rob Corddry and Jon Wurster and Peter Hughes and was the most fun thing to make, as you’ll see, and not telling you all that I had actually met and worked with Chavo Guerrero has been total torture for the past month-plus, so please: enjoy!

Bob Dylan Performs "The Night We Called It a Day" on David Letterman's Penultimate "Late Show"



David Letterman’s last-ever Late Show will air tonight. But if Letterman somehow doesn’t make it to work today, last night’s show was a pretty good one to go out on. The episode had appearances from a couple of American legends who also happen to be perverse old kooks. Bill Murray, maybe Letterman’s favorite guest ever, showed up covered in cake, which just makes sense. And then, as the musical guest, Bob Dylan made his first Letterman appearance since 1993. (It might’ve also been his first late-night TV performance in general since then? Dylan just doesn’t do late-night TV.) Dylan’s performance was the sort of theatrical oddness we’ve come to expect from the man at this stage of his life. After Letterman called him “the greatest songwriter of modern times,” Dylan proceeded to sing a song he didn’t write: The old standard “The Night We Called It A Day,” from his new Sinatra tribute album Shadows In The Night. The performance felt meandering and off, as recent-vintage Dylan performances do. And when Letterman came out to share the stage with Dylan at the end, Dylan pretty much glared at Letterman, looking like a disapproving grandma. It was all tremendously entertaining, and you can watch.

Nicki Minaj - “Feeling Myself” (Feat. Beyoncé) Video


Finally, Tidal gives us something we really want: the video for Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé’s Pinkprint collab “Feeling Myself.” As Complex points out, it premiered exclusively on Tidal, but like Rihanna’s “American Oxygen” video, it leaked shortly after. “American Oxygen” was later replaced by an official YouTube stream, as this probably will be too. For the highly-anticipated clip, the two artists prance all over Coachella and various summery climes, looking flawless and fawning all over themselves — as well they should. My favorite part is when Minaj is whipping batter and then winks, but Chicago fans will probably love Beyonce’s decision to sport a Bulls swimsuit. 

Watch Sia Sing For Derek & Julianne Hough Routine On Dancing With The Stars Finale



Dancing With The Stars wrapped up its 20th (!) season last night, and Sia joined the celebration to sing her 1000 Forms Of Fear single “Elastic Heart.” Judge Julianne Hough and her brother, Derek, took part in an elaborately choreographed performance that pits two adults and the child versions of themselves against each other, and lets their fights play out in parallel. All of the dancers carry on the jerky movement that Maddie Ziegler adopted for her trilogy of videos. Sia looms in a window-frame in the background, her wig covering her face as usual.

A$AP Rocky - “LSD” (Official Video)



A$AP Rocky has shared another track from his upcoming sophomore album, At.Long.Last.A$AP. Lil B was the first one to share the song. This is the second track we’ve heard from the record in the past few weeks, following the following the Miguel/Mark Ronson/Rod Stewart team-up “Everyday.” The new track is called “LSD,” and it’s a return to the murkier production of his earlier stuff, but there’s still enough Danger Mouse polish here to make a mark. It’s accompanied by a trippy video that was directed by Dexter Navy and Rocky himself.

Weed - “Thousand Pounds” (Official Video)



I can’t decide if naming your band Weed is brilliant or lazy, but it seems to be working out well for the Vancouver gloom-rock trio. We premiered their excellent new album Running Back this spring, and now they’ve dropped a video for one of the tracks, “Thousand Pounds.” Directed by Courtney Garvin of The Courtneys, it’s pure ’90s grunge grit — angular, off-kilter shots of a group of dudes hanging out in a park, doing dumb, adolescent stuff while doodles dance across their faces.

STS x RJD2 - “Doin’ It Right” (Official Video)



What the hell is going on in Philadelphia lately? It seems like every time I turn around there’s another incredible punk act or all-girl band that completely slays indie rock stereotypes. The latest from the city of brotherly love to buck preconceived notions are the soulful and clever collaborators STS and RJD2, who just released a joint album. Of course, RJD2’s biggest claim to fame is his instrumental composition “A Beautiful Mine” — aka the theme from Mad Men. Are you paying attention now? OK then, back to their new album: It came out a few weeks ago and kicks off with the jubilant, syncopated “Doin’ It Right,” which gets a party-happy video today. The last time a rap song made me feel this carefree and exultant I was listening to Acid Rap. Shouts out to that cheerful, passionate live brass section too.

Watch A Teaser For Coldplay & Peter Dinklage’s Game Of Thrones Musical




Game Of Thrones isn’t what anyone would really call a funny show. (Especially after last week’s ending. Yee.) But it does have funny moments, and most of those moments come from Peter Dinklage’s portrayal of Tyrion Lannister. And now Dinklage will get to do some A-list self-deprecation. As part of the money-raising comedy marathon Red Nose Day, Dinklage and Coldplay are teaming up to make Game Of Thrones: The Musical. Below, watch a teaser for a Dinklage song about his character’s miraculous ability to not die. There are some light spoilers in there, but come on, catch up.

Watch Foo Fighters’ Mini-Doc About Record Store Day Gig In Small-Town Ohio



For Record Store Day this year, official RSD ambassador Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters played a show at a small record store called the Record Connection in Niles, Ohio, just a short ways away from Grohl’s birthplace of Warren. The band has just shared a short documentary about the event, which details the story behind the owners of the record shop, and shows the set-up and anticipation for the show. It also contains some footage of the band playing Wasting Light‘s “White Limo” during their set.

Tomorrows Tulips - "When" (Official Music Video)



On the title track from last year’s When, Burger Records rockers and blatant apostrophe-omitters Tomorrows Tulips run the label’s trademark throwback West Coast garage rock through a ’90s alt-rock churn. I’d cite Yo La Tengo’s immortal cover of the Beach Boys’ “Little Honda,” but it’s a bit like Pavement taking a crack at a similar Brian Wilson tune, spreading a thick layer of languid drone all over cheery surfside rock ‘n’ roll and slowing it to a steady crawl. Tin Ojeda and Dominic Santos’ video sets the song to a splitscreen narrative involving a recording studio, skuzzy apartments, seedy diners, and many intriguing characters.

Belly - “White Girls” (Feat. Travi$ Scott) Video



I know what you’re thinking, and no, Tanya Donnelly’s early-’90s alt-pop trio is not working with the Houston rapper and producer Travi$ Scott. That would be weird. This is a different Belly. This one is a rapper from Toronto who’s somehow affiliated with the Weeknd; he was on the “King Of The Fall” remix with Ty Dolla $ign. Belly released a new mixtape called Up For Days not long ago, and the Travi$ collab “White Girls” now has a hyper-stylized video that features a whole lot of girls and flashing lights. It fits completely into whatever you’d call this post-Drake thing happening in Toronto rap right now. David Camarena directed the video.

Tamaryn - “Hands All Over Me” (Official Video)



Tamaryn’s incredible new album Cranekiss is the pinnacle of gauzy, maximalist pop, and “Hands All Over Me” is the dreamy, psychedelic new single that I already wrote about as one of the 5 Best Songs Of The Week. Today, that track gets video, an illicit, torrid clip that blurs the line between prurience and spectacle. Tamaryn dances just out of reach of the pair of disembodied, gloved hands grabbing at her. She’s covered in glitter-and-fringe and seems to be dancing inside some sort of dark box with sliding panels and prying eyes at every turn. It’s interesting to watch this visual interpretation, because I heard the song as a sort of exultant, lustful track, but this re-imagines it as a battle with consent. Watch the Danilo Parra-directed clip.

Wet - “Deadwater” (Official Video)



I’ve already rhapsodized about what a perfect pop song Wet have delivered with “Deadwater,” and now the Don’t You single gets a gorgeous video to go along with it. The clip follows Kelly Zutrau through a childlike day of grasping kittens, riding on the back of a friend’s bicycle, and heaving a model plane off a cliff, approaching the song’s story of letting go and moving forward from a winsome new angle. The beautifully shot video was directed by George Belfield and filmed by Steve Annis on location in Peekskill, NY. “Deadwater” remains one of this year’s best.

POP ETC - “Bad Break” (Official Video)



POP ETC was once a Berkeley-based band known as the Morning Benders; they moved to Brooklyn around the same time they rebranded themselves under their current moniker in 2012. That same year, the band released their self-titled debut LP on Rough Trade Records. We haven’t heard much from POP ETC since then, aside from the single that A.V. Club premiered back in February and a smattering of covers here and there, but today they’ve released a new song titled “Bad Break.” The lyric video for the title track features footage of the band traipsing through New York, with karaoke-style subtitles.

Watch The Trailer For We Are Your Friends, Starring Zac Efron As An EDM DJ


All of the sleaziest dudes who lived in my freshman year college dorm were party promoters. They were the kind of guys who slipped garish neon-colored invitations under your door, the ones who told other guys that they would get into the club for free if they brought along at least four girls. Dudes who “promote” EDM college parties are not cool, which is why it’s hilarious that Zac Efron will star as a “cool” college promoter-turned-DJ in the new feature film We Are Your Friends, which was directed by Max Joseph and is set to be released this summer. Efron plays Cole, an aspiring 23-year-old producer whose only escape from the Valley is his burgeoning career as a DJ at exclusive parties in the Hollywood Hills. Muscle tees abound, and Zac Efron looks great in them! Watch a trailer below.

Diamond Youth - "Thought I Had It Right" (Official Video) + Nothing Matters (Stream)



One iota of distortion into “No Control” is exactly when I became a Diamond Youth fan. Their rippling, bummer euphoria is exactly the kind of breakneck, anthemic guitar music that still appeals to me, and their debut album Nothing Matters comes out today. In anticipation of that, we’re premiering the bloody, black and white video for “Thought I Had It Right.” Some of these riffs remind me of the early years of a band who helped me through my teenage angst, Minneapolis emo-rockers Motion City Soundtrack. Songs that are mostly about regret and fucking up should shred the way this one does, providing momentary relief from remorse. You can also stream the entire album below the video, because after watching it you’re going to want to. Here’s the Max Moore-directed video:

And the full Nothing Matters album stream:

5/18/2015

Taylor Swift - “Bad Blood (Remix Feat. Kendrick Lamar)” (Official Video)



Taylor Swift built the “Bad Blood” video to be a massive spectacle. On 5/7, she sent out the first poster featuring a character from it, and from then on it was hard to escape the onslaught of big names as we creeped closer to the video’s debut. Each was met with a flurry of fanfare and speculation, and deservedly so. We haven’t had a star pileup like this in a music video in a long time. Here’s the expansive list of participants, a veritable mix of Hollywood stars, artists, models, and the indiscriminately famous: Swift herself, Kendrick Lamar, Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba, Lena Dunham, Selena Gomez, Mariska Hargitay, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Ellie Goulding, Gigi Hadid, Ellen Pompeo, Zendaya, Hailee Steinfeld, Martha Hunt, Serayah, and Lily Aldridge. Each gets only a few seconds of screen time, but the video is so over-the-top and badass that they basically only serve as set pieces for Hunger Games-style dystopian madness anyway. The whole thing was directed by Joseph Kahn, who also did the “Blank Space” video from earlier this year. And it turns out the whole thing was made to debut a remix of the song featuring none other than Kendrick Lamar, who Swift has publicly obsessed over in recent months. It premiered at the start of the Billboard Music Awards tonight. Watch the whole crazy fun thing.

How To Dress Well - “See You Fall” (Official Video)



Last year, How To Dress Well put out a trilogy of interconnected videos for his album What Is This Heart. The videos for “Repeat Pleasure,” “Face Again,” and “Childhood Faith In Love” track the story of a young couple who meet up with a healer after finding out one of their loved ones is dying. That story has been condensed into one four-minute chunk for the new “See You Fall” video which, logically, was also directed by Johannes Greve Muskat and Luke Gilford, as the originals were.

Watch Tom Waits Debut “Take One Last Look” In His Final Letterman Appearance



David Letterman has long been a champion of deeply strange American voices, as you know if you’ve ever seen footage of him interviewing Captain Beefheart. Tom Waits first appeared on Letterman’s NBC show in 1983, and he’s been on a number of times over the years. With a week left before his retirement, Letterman had Waits on one of his final shows last night. Waits used the occasion to debut a new song, something he hasn’t done in a while. It’s called “Take One Last Look,” and it’s a scraggly lullaby about leaving your home forever — a poignant thing for him to be singing about in this circumstance. Waits also sat down for an interview with Letterman, in which he tried out a series of daffy stand-up routines. George Clooney had handcuffed himself to Letterman in a bit earlier in the night, and Waits reduced him to chuckle-fits exactly twice. Watch the performance and the interview, as well as Waits’ original Letterman appearance.




Girlpool - “Before The World Was Big” (Official Video)



The first post I ever did for Stereogum was a Girlpool video — the “Chinatown” one back in January — so their wonderfully swift rise over the past few months always gives me a twinge of pride, like we’re in this together. Regardless, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad are one the best things to happen to 2015, a gift from and to girls, capturing the infinite universe of friendship, nostalgia and rebellion that comprises the core of femininity. “Before The World Was Big” is the title track off their debut album, and I already wrote about how it’s a quietly powerful reflection on the loss of girlhood for 5 Best Songs of the Week. In the video to the track, they ventured to Coney Island, what might be the quintessential place to mourn the loss of innocence, as well as glory in the here-and-now. The video premiered on Rookie in a post by Allyssa Yohana, who also created the clip. Shot in the now-beloved vintage film style, it’s just close-ups of these two wandering around enjoying the day and being with each other. I see all my most important friendships reflected in the laughter and hand-holding of Harmony and Cleo, and that’s the point of this video. It’s a mirror and a beacon for girls worldwide, just like their album is. Two girls with guitars can change the world, and that’s exactly what Girlpool are going to do. If you don’t agree with me, I don’t even care because Willow Smith does.

Holychild - “Money All Around” (Official Video)



Holychild’s excellent debut album The Shape Of Brat Pop To Come will be out in June, and in the meantime they’re on tour with Passion Pit and releasing songs from the record in a slow trickle. My favorite song on the record is “Money All Around,” a sarcastic, strutting takedown of our shallow, capitalistic society that packs enough of a punch to be enjoyable as a glitter-crunch pop song even stripped of its agenda. The video, however, is not about to let anyone strip away that agenda, as it traces Liz Nistico and Louie Diller’s frantic crawl through the Dresden in Los Angeles. Throughout the clip, colorful little bubbles of information surface, Pop-Up Video-style, casually sharing tidbits about the state of the music industry, tackling ageism and eating disorders, and forcing the viewer to take in the full scope of the song’s purpose. It’s a bratty, brazen takedown of pop culture using absurdist imagery encased in a shiny, candy-coated shell, and if that’s not enough for you, toss in the fact that the duo directed it themselves. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and all that.

Black English - “Another Life” (Official Video)



Black English – “Another Life” (Dir. Zak Stoltz)

The idea of a music video-as-Infinite Jest samizdat, something so sad that it reduces much of society to uncontrollable tears, is plenty enough to carry a music video on its own. This one takes that and pushes it to some truly ridiculous places.

Popcaan - “Unruly Prayer” Official Video (Feat. Drake)



Bless Jamaican dancehall prodigy Popcaan for giving us this heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving in the midst of a particularly petty year. “Unruly Prayer” is a joyous, buoyant anthem of celebration and humility that rings out with particular grace, a dancehall hymn to usher in the summer. Mostly the video is clips of Popcaan and his crew hanging out in nature, waving flags and smoking blunts in peace. Look for a few cameos from everyone’s favorite co-signing superstar Drake; at one point he’s wearing a cape emblazoned with his possibly emoji-inspired prayer hands logo. That shot alone is something to be thankful for. The track was produced by Dinearo and floats by on amorphous synths and only a hint of a beat. More of an incantation than a song, “Unruly Prayer” reveals a subdued, tranquil side to Popcaan that’s very appealing. This song isn’t on his 2014 debut album Where We Come From, so he maybe he’s teasing a new project? I’ll be praying.

Run The Jewels - “Early” (Feat. Boots) Video



Killer Mike’s heartfelt, terrified opening verse from Run The Jewels’ police-brutality freakout “Early” might be the single greatest moment on last year’s RTJ2, and album full of great moments. Alongside hooksinger and Beyoncé collaborator Boots, the duo performed the song on Letterman shortly after the album’s release. And now the harsh, dystopic animated video for “Early” feels like it’s arriving right on time. The clip, from directors Bug & Sluzzy, recreates the narrative from that Mike verse, and it also shows stylized portraits of the anti-police brutality demonstrations that have been happening around the country for the past year. The lyrics flash on the screen, but this isn’t a lyric video; it’s something much more primal.

Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” Video Is Now A Video Game



If you were a kid when Jamiroquai dropped their classic Jonathan Glazer-directed “Virtual Insanity” video, you probably found yourself asking one question, over and over: How does that couch not totally just kill him? Just crush him up against the wall and end him? It seems like it’s about to happen again and again, but it never does. That video is now the basis for an appealingly crude video game that’s somehow not called Virtual Instanity. Instead, as the AV Club reports, it’s called Jamiroquai Game, and it involves moving a polygonal version of Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay around, dodging endless couches as they come out of the walls, as a midi version of “Virtual Insanity” plays. The “splat” sound effect when a couch finally hits him is priceless. Watch a gameplay video and the original still-great “Virtual Insanity” video below.



You can play or download the game here. I haven’t played it, mostly because I don’t want my whole day to get sucked into a time-wasting black hole, so I can’t vouch for how well it works.

Heartless Bastards - “Gates of Dawn” (Official Video)



This summer Austin’s Heartless Bastards are releasing Restless Ones, their fifth album of wide-open rock. The album was produced by John Congleton and showcases frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom’s gritty, bluesy voice more than ever. Today we’re premiering the video for “Gates Of Dawn,” which gives me DIY/home-video vibes and follows a teenager who is taunting, fleeing from and wrestling a devil of sorts. Shots of the band are mixed in, and they kaleidoscope out into a colorful, psychedelic mess at the end. Watch the Frank Weysos-directed clip.

5/14/2015

Ryn Weaver - “Octahate” Video (Version 2)



As much as I love the Brontë sisters, the mansions of their Victorian-era moors aren’t a place that anyone would ever dream of escaping to. They’re haunted and glum, and if you’re a woman, totally oppressive. Whether or not it takes place in England, Ryn Weaver’s new video for her massive 2014 summer single “OctaHate” features the singer wreaking havoc on the likeness of one of these massive, seemingly abandoned homes. She rushes into the central ballroom with a friend in tow, before they dance atop the table of an exquisite banquet. Weaver’s forthcoming album is titled The Fool, which makes the closing scene’s absurdity and resemblance to Alice In Wonderland‘s Mad Tea Party all the more pertinent.

The Twilight Sad - “It Never Was The Same” (Official Video)



Melancholy Scottish rockers the Twilight Sad put out their fourth album, Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave, last year, but today they’ve released a video for one of the album’s tracks, “It Never Was The Same.” With titles like that, you knew this shit was going to get dark, right? The video opens with a shot of two old men sitting in a bar, then quickly cuts to a woman in white dragging a man in all-black down the street. Eventually these two story lines intersect, but I won’t give away the dramatic conclusion. Watch the handheldcineclub-directed video .

Watch Miley Cyrus & Ariana Grande Cover Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”

Happy Hippie Presents: Backyard Sessions - "Don't Dream It's Over" featuring Ariana GrandeSoooooo thankful for Ariana Grande for being a part of the #backyardsessions!! You're the sweetest little #happyhippie bear-mouse ever! Loooooove you  The Happy Hippie Foundation #HappyHippiePresents #dontdreamitsover
Posted by Miley Cyrus on Jueves, 14 de mayo de 2015


The Australian band Crowded House originally recorded “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and it became one of those slow-rock, dreamy hits that characterized the late ’80s and early ’90s so well. Their version came out in 1986, which was before Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, or I was born, but maybe like me, the two pop stars heard Sixpence None The Richer’s excellent 2003 version. (I mean, it was on a Smallville compilation soundtrack, how could anyone miss that?) Cyrus recently launched a charity organization called the Happy Hippie Foundation that seeks to help marginalized LGBT homeless youth and has been posting backyard jam sessions to help get out the word — including an awesome collaboration with Laura Jane Grace on “True Trans Soul Rebel.” I was really into the one Cyrus did featuring Melanie Safka, “Look What They’ve Done To My Song Ma,” but her new duet with Ariana Grande tops that folk classic. The two sat on a neon blow-up couch and sang “Don’t Dream It’s Over” as a duet — even if you’ve decided you’re somehow above the pop music these two talented women make, this cover is worth hearing. It’s moody, romantic, and hopeful. Plus they sound fabulous together; Cyrus scratchy and low, and Grande with her velvet soprano.

Waterstrider - “Frayed” (Official Video)



Oakland psychedelic fuzzers Waterstrider blur the line between stillness and movement in their new video for “Frayed.” The clip plays out like one of those flip-books from your childhood, a collection of 40,000 photographs sequenced to look like a video. It features the Waterstrider vocalist Nate Salman and Kevn Tijerina. The seams between shots are visible and give the clip a stilted, puppeteered feel that contrasts nicely with the song’s funk-pop longing and elation.

Watch A Raunchy Miley Cyrus & The Flaming Lips Debut “Tiger Dreams” At Adult Swim Upfront



Miley Cyrus debuted one of her long-in-the-works collaborations with the Flaming Lips during her performance last night at the Adult Swim Upfront at Terminal 5 in New York City. Wayne Coyne joined the pop singer halfway through her set to do a song called “Tiger Dreams” from their forthcoming joint album. While introducing the song, Cyrus said: “As you can imagine, Wayne doesn’t listen much to Katy Perry, and I had to tell him that she already has a song called ‘Tiger’ and that we can’t do that. So this is ‘Tiger Dreams.'” Presumably, she’s referring to “Roar,” which goes “I’ve got the eye of the tiger…” Watch the video.

And that little aside doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Cyrus said during the performance. As Billboard reports, at one point the singer covered Khia’s classic “My Neck, My Back” and introduced it as such:
Bitches, you better sing the shit out of this song! Do you know how many times I turn on the radio and hear somebody ask me to suck his dick? This is the best song! Now suck my fucking pussy!


She also talked about her new charity The Happy Hippie Foundation, which she launched last week with videos starring Joan Jett and Laura Jane Grace:
I’m not one to slow down the party, but there’s some people here wearing some suits and ties and shit, so I’m guessing there are some people have money. But there’s some people who have money and don’t have clean shoes and underwear, and that’s what I’m doing with my foundation. We’re not changing — I gotta get used to saying this, because it’s real now — we are changing the world. And I’ll be here, because there’s a bar, if you guys wanna know how to get involved.
She also covered Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue,” Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” and Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” all of which she’s done live before. Here’s the full setlist for the night:
“#GETITRIGHT”
“SMS (Bangerz)”
“Do My Thang”
“A Boy Named Sue” (Johnny Cash cover)
“4×4″
“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” (Paul Simon cover)
“No Freedom” (Dido Cover)
“Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (Led Zeppelin cover)
“Drive”
“Tiger Dreams” (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“A Day In The Life” (The Beatles cover) (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“My Neck, My Back” (Khia cover)
“We Can’t Stop”
“Love Money Party”

Lianne La Havas - “Unstoppable” (Official Video)



Lianne La Havas is so mesmerizing that she can dance alone in a room for four minutes and still leave you feeling spellbound. So why not take advantage of that ability? That’s exactly what happened in the “Unstoppable” video — it’s just La Havas clad in several versions of a gorgeous, dark-blue bodysuit, twirling around in the sunlight of a vaulted room. She sings every line of this gorgeous love song with so much conviction that you’re drawn into her orbit just by listening. I’m going to watch this video before every important decision I make from now on — that’s how much confidence oozes out of it. Watch.

Hudson Mohawke - “Very First Breath” (Feat. Irfane) Video



Next month, the futurist producer and Kanye West collaborator Hudson Mohawke will drop his new album Lantern upon an unsuspecting world. And this morning, he’s unveiled his video for the single “Very First Breath,” a collaboration with singer Irfane. Director Sam De Jong‘s clip seems to tell the story of the beginning of a relationship and of its violent end. I say “seems to” because I’m not entirely sure what’s happening in the video. But even if the narrative is a bit muddy, the video has style to burn, telling its story with neon and glitter and red light bathing everything. For whatever reason, it also has Korean subtitles. (That’s Korean, right?) The video is a good one, and you can watch it below.

Watch A Trailer For Julian Casablancas + The Voidz’ “Human Sadness” Video



Julian Casablancas + The Voidz released their massive, disorderly record Tyranny last year, and “Human Sadness” was the first single. The song was teased in bits and pieces before they dropped the whopping 11-minute-long composition. The band has been hyping the video since November, when they did an interview with Revolt TV, and in March, a Twitter account dedicated to the short film surfaced. Now, there’s a brand-new trailer for the video, which will premiere next Wednesday 5/20 at the Cinefamily in NYC preceding a screening of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho.

Elisa Ambrogio - “Arkansas” (Official Video)



Magik Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio released her astounding debut solo album, The Immoralist, last summer on Drag City, an understated collection of personal songs that echo into infinity, slipping into empty spaces of unconsciousness and waking them. Much of The Immoralist centers on themes of the supernatural and the occult, so its fitting that Ambrogio enlisted Amy E. Scott to direct the video for “Arkansas.” Scott is the documentarian behind Once I Was: The Hal Ashby Story, a film about the director of Harold And Maude, and Scott’s obsession with cult-film directors infiltrated her collaboration with Ambrogio as well. The director of Back Door To Hell and Two Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman, stars opposite Ambrogio in the video for “Arkansas.” As the two play a game of chess in an idyllic California country house on the water, their actions are interspersed with dream-like imagery.

The Silver Lake Chorus - “Hold Up For” (Official Video)



City of Angels choral pop group the Silver Lake Chorus (TSLC) has been blessed with some skillful song writing by the Flaming Lips, Ben Gibbard, Sia, and Bon Iver. We’ve heard “Heavy Star Movin’” penned by Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips. Now, Tegan And Sara’s contribution is brought to the life in TSLC member Charlie Maas’ video for “Hold Up For.” The Brian Bress-inspired clip features a handful of TSLC’s 25 members, a power saw, and some good old colorful construction paper. The members playfully peek through shapes reminiscent of elementary school arts and crafts they’ve cut in the paper. It’s simple, but it’s probably the cutest thing you’ll see all week. Heart-eyed emoji times three.

Speedy Ortiz - “Raising The Skate” (Official Video)



In the video for “Raising The Skate,” the great single from their new album Foil Deer, the members of the whipsmart Massachusetts DIY band Speedy Ortiz spend the night in a haunted house, and things don’t go so well for most of them. Like the band’s clip for “The Graduates,” this one uses the cheapest, silliest ways possible to go over-the-top surreal. It’s less a horror movie and more a sly joke about horror movies, though frontwoman Sadie Dupuis does admittedly make a great Final Girl. Casey Herz directed the video.

Matteah Baim - “Peach Tree” (Official Video)



One of last year’s most lovely (and most regrettably slept-on) releases was Matteah Baim’s Falling Theater, an album of quietly beautiful folk music featuring collaborations from the likes of Antony Hegarty and MGMT’s James Richardson. For those who aren’t familiar, Baim is an artist who has been releasing gorgeous and occasionally inscrutable records for years now (both as a solo artist and as a member of Metallic Falcons) and has performed and collaborated with everyone from Perfume Genius to Devendra Banhart to Lower Dens to Liturgy to Vashti Bunyan. This week sees the release of a companion video for “Peach Tree,” one of Falling Theater‘s most stunning tracks. Directed by renowned filmmaker Jonathan Caouette (the mad genius responsible for the acclaimed autobiographical documentary Tarnation as well as last year’s mind-bending docu-video for John Grant’s “Glacier”), the clip features footage of Caouette’s own mother having an ambiguously transcendent experience at a cabin tucked away in the woods, which proves to be an inspired pairing for a song that is an almost haiku-like meditation on stillness. Caouette shared a statement about the collaboration:
Matteah’s solo work never fails to move me emotionally. It’s unpredictable and unfailingly moving in all the greatest ways that good music can/should be. I reached into my archive of footage recently and dipped into some outtakes from an experimental film I had been working on a while ago, and repurposed it to marry aspects of it into Matteah’s beautiful, astral song, “Peach Tree.” I am not certain what the actual backstory of the song is, lyrically, but I immediately was able to personalize with the music and lyrics. I used some footage of my dear mom, who has suffered from a severe mental illness most of her life.

Squarepusher - “Stor Eiglass” Virtual Reality Video



During his late-’90s heyday, the experimental dance music whiz kid Squarepusher was responsible for some truly boundary-crushing music videos. So it only makes sense that Squarepusher would try his hand at the whole interactive-video wave happening now. For “Stor Eiglass,” a track from his new album Damogen Furies, Squarepusher has gotten together with Marshmallow Laser Feast, Rob Pybus, and Blue Zoo to develop a whole candy-colored virtual-reality universe. And even if you watch the standard YouTube version of the video, you can use YouTube’s 360 function to pan around the environments. For the virtual-reality headset version of the clip, head over here, or play around with the YouTube version below.

Fraser A. Gorman - “Shiny Gun” Video (Feat. Courtney Barnett)



Aussie singer-songwriter Fraser A. Gorman makes a deceptively American style of alternative country/folk. He even admits to being slightly out of sorts on his previous single “Broken Hands,” singing, “I got no soul/’Cause country music sounds to me like rock ‘n’ roll.” Gorman’s latest offering is a video for “Shiny Gun” off his forthcoming album Slow Gum. Directed by Sunny Leunig, the clip is a fine piece of throwback work that Ron Burgundy would be proud of. His friend and label head Courtney Barnett assists as the sports correspondent on a fun ’70s-style news broadcast turned jam session. If only local news was this entertaining.

Vince Staples - “Señorita” (Official Video)



Last week, the young Long Beach rap insurgent Vince Staples shared “Señorita,” the first single from his official debut album Summertime ’06. With its sweeping production and its Future hook, the song initially sounded like Staples’ attempt to reach the marketplace. But the song’s brand-new video tells a different story. It’s a vivid, apocalyptic black-and-white vision about a ghetto full of poor black and Latino and white people gunned down randomly, living squalid lives and looking for meaning. There’s a Twilight Zone-level reveal at the end. This is a striking, powerful piece of work, the kind of thing that gives the song a whole new context. Ian Pons Jewell directed the video.

Spoon - “Inside Out” (Official Video)



Last month, They Want My Soul single “Inside Out” got a whole EP worth of remixes, and now Spoon has shared a video for the track. Britt Daniel plays the passive observer during a bunch of retro set pieces, as though he’s slipped out of time himself. There are banquet hall fights, old-school recording studios, and a robbery getaway, all shot with a sweeping, soft lens. The video was directed by duo Leblanc + Cudmore, who also recently shot videos for Belle & Sebastian, the New Pornographers, and alt-J.

Watch A New Trailer For Kurt Cobain Conspiracy Theory Docudrama Soaked In Bleach



This year is an embarrassment of riches if you’re really into documentaries about Kurt Cobain. First we had Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, which was a legitimately very good documentary that painted a complicated and unsympathetic portrait of one of our most enduring rockstars. The other is Soaked In Bleach, a borderline offensive and unbelievably cheesy-looking “docudrama” that combines a few interviews with reenactments that explore the kooky theory of whether or not Courtney Love staged her husband’s suicide. We saw one trailer last year, and now here’s another one — it looks stupid, but also maybe worth a hatewatch.

Angelic Milk - “IDK How” (Official Video)



Angelic Milk is the project of 17-year-old Russian punk Sarah Persephona, who wowed last month with “IDK How,” her deceptively deep and immensely replayable new single. The track now has a video to go along with it, and it provides just as much insight into the younger singer’s mind as her songs do. It’s a mish-mash of sparkling pink retro backdrops and dirty urban landscapes; digital decay fills the screen like someone just copied-and-pasted some of their favorite GIFs from around the web. It’s an entertaining funhouse that Persephona floats through, buoyed by a song that makes you want to jump along with it.

5/12/2015

Major Lazer - “2 Cups” (Feat. Riff Raff) Video



Major Lazer have a new album called Peace Is The Mission coming out, but to promote their new FXX cartoon, they’re also cranking out non-album tracks these days. Most recently, we saw their video for the Andy Samberg collab “Bass Drop.” And now they’re teaming up with the Mad Decent rap clown Riff Raff for “2 Cups,” a song about consuming dangerous amounts of codeine cough syrup. The track’s new video, from animator Jeremy Sengly, is basically a lyric video, though it does feature a Skeletor-looking cartoon version of Riff Raff.

José González - “Open Book” (Official Video)



Last month, the Swedish-Argentine singer-songwriter José González starred in Calexico’s video for “Falling From The Sky,” alongside a truly disturbing and disgusting misshapen worm-creature puppet. Well, that nasty-ass worm is back again, this time in one of González’s own videos. In this one, González checks into a hotel to spend some quality time with his creature. The video feels deeply peaceful, making for a sharp contrast from all the Cronenbergian body horror on display. “Falling From The Sky” director Mikel Cee Karlsson helmed this one, as well.

Fred Thomas - “Cops Don’t Care Pt. II” (Official Video)



Fred Thomas is the kind of songwriter who reorders your universe if you hear his music at the right moment, and for me, that moment arrived last night at the Brooklyn DIY venue Palisades. Watching Thomas perform completely alone to a small but silent audience felt bone-stripping, making each one of his tongue-in-cheek references cut twice as deep. Though Thomas’ songs narrate inane intricacies of daily life at breakneck speed, the small situations he conjures often speak to more universal feelings of unease. “Cops Don’t Care Pt. II,” from Thomas’ new All Are Saved, is a heavy, contempt-fueled discussion of power dynamics. It conveys a sentiment rather than a straightforward message, small pieces of passing scenery jutting out like misplaced limbs. “Life is so incredibly long, like a kiss on a bridge between two nervous-ass kids, terrified of doing everything wrong/ Fickle, belligerent, fully-existent.” When Thomas played this track last night, the room was so quiet that it felt frigid, despite the fact that the A/C wasn’t on and everyone in the surrounding crowd was so sweaty that we, as a collective, smelled rank. In less than two minutes, “Cops Don’t Care Pt. II” breaks your heart and puts it back together again with its defiant and declarative conclusion, “Nobody’s safe from the law because they don’t give a fuck/ They don’t give a fuck about us.” All of Thomas’ songs are intimate and earnest, with any hint at self-reverence dampened by his acerbic delivery, and this new video for “Cops Don’t Care Pt. II” perfectly illustrates his dichotomous persona. Joel Rakowski directs.

Main Attrakionz - “Ain’t No Other Way” Video (Dir. Kreayshawn)



Bay Area duo Main Attrakionz helped pioneer the murky, drifting, emotive rap style that made A$AP Rocky famous, but they’ve been missing in action for a few years. Next month, they’ll return with their new album 808s & Dark Grapes 3, produced entirely by Friendzone. Kreayshawn got her start directing videos for Bay Area underground rappers before getting famous with “Gucci Gucci,” and she handles the clip for the twinkling 808s & Dark Grapes 3 single “Ain’t No Other Way.” In the clip, Main Attrakionz and Friendzone amble through San Francisco’s Chinatown, and Kreayshawn makes lovely use of neon light whenever possible.

Rae Sremmurd - “This Could Be Us” (Official Video)



Mississippi duo Rae Sremmurd have already scored three monster hits — “No Flex Zone,” “No Type,” “Throw Sum Mo” — all from their ridiculously fun debut album SremmLife. In the annals of swag-rap history, that’s pretty much an unprecedented feat. And they could have a third on their hands, now that they’ve released “This Could Be Us” as a single. The Twitter meme that inspired the song is beyond dead, but the song itself is still absurdly catchy, and now its got a fun video. In the new clip, both members of Rae Sremmurd get dumped long-distance via Skype, but neither of them seems too bothered by it. Both of them, after all, are in South Africa, petting cheetahs and playing spin the bottle. Max & Michael Illiams direct.

5/11/2015

Marilyn Manson - “The Mephistopheles Of Los Angeles” (Official Video)



Marilyn Manson might still be the music industry’s most prominent exhibitionist, having managed to maintain his branded, performative facade for over 20 years. Manson is still riding on the same shock-goth sensibility that he introduced way back in 1994, when Portrait Of An American Family dropped and Manson made himself known as a force to be reckoned with, or at least, someone to be scared of. “The Mephistopheles Of Los Angeles” is a track off of Manson’s latest offering, The Pale Emperor, and the video for the song shows the singer evangelizing his demonic ways amidst a gloomy, black and white warehouse district in L.A. The song and storyline alludes to Mephistopheles, a satanic, Germanic demon who first appeared in a Faustian legend. Directed by Francesco Carrozzini, this video is a creepy homage to cult icons.

Raekwon - “1,2 1,2″ (Feat. Snoop Dogg) Video



Raekwon’s new album Fly International Luxurious Art came and went without a whole lot of notice last month. But that album had some joints on it, and one of those joints was “1,2 1,2,” on which Rae and Snoop Dogg teamed up for bring a surprising level of old-rap-dude energy. Those two have styles that should clash horribly, but they meshed beautifully and seemed to really enjoy being on a song together. The new video for “1,2 1,2″ has some of that same energy working for it. It’s one of those rapping-against-a-white-background videos, but it keeps things energetic, and it showcases the charisma of a couple of honest-to-god stars. Dame Dash cameos and does the Dame Dash dance, which I didn’t even know was possible without champagne bottles in both hands.

Röyksopp - “I Had This Thing” (Official Video)



Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp had a momentous 2014, reaching chart peaks and earning a Grammy nomination for Do It Again, the mini-album they recorded alongside Robyn. They also released their fifth and final full-length studio album, The Inevitable End, to both critical and commercial success. Now they’ve put out a video for the album’s single “I Had This Thing,” which features a cooing, vulnerable vocal from Inevitable End collaborator Jamie Irrepressible. Director Roboshobo’s footage follows the confusion and heartache of a young couple, whose hang-ups get overshadowed by what can only be described as a cross between a UFO sighting and a volcanic eruption. Much like the song, the video inhabits the most painful intimacies of love, then explodes them into a wash of warm color.

Tanlines - “Pieces” (Official Video)



Tanlines have been poking fun at the whole idea of an album rollout as they prepare to release their second album Highlights. Maybe when something as absurd as your hard drive blowing up happens, this whole process loses its edge of seriousness. So, they turned their website into a Netflix parody, streamed the whole project via a conference call, and today, premiered the video for “Pieces” on FunnyorDie.com. Even if it’s a bit of a spoof, the video is a really cute story of Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm playing basketball, driving through Venice Beach and Santa Monica in a convertible, and meeting some cute girls. In the end, they face off against another duo on the basketball court, who beat them rather handily. But that doesn’t even matter, because they can still drive around a beach town, singing along to their own song, hands out the window in a convertible.

Chastity Belt - “Joke” (Official Video)



It’s always cool to see how a band operates during their downtime in a tour video, like the one Chastity Belt put together for their Time To Go Home track “Joke.” They are seem like loads of fun, like the kind of people you wouldn’t mind having to be stuck in a van with for weeks at a time. The mellow vibe of “Joke” matches the mood of the video, which alternates between shots of them drinking, walking around the cities they visited and, of course, a lot of sitting in the car.

Courtney Barnett - “Dead Fox” (Official Video)



“Dead Fox” is the environmental anthem that comes during the middle of Courtney Barnett’s great debut full-length. As all Barnett’s songs are, it’s about much more than what’s on the surface, but it is the most overtly political song on the record, and now it’s got an animated video that depicts some of the injustices the song points out. Kangaroo carcasses litter the shoulder of a road, cute animals drive cars and participate in the very industry that is slow eviscerating them. Barnett stands as the detached observer in all of this, complicit and conflicted. The video was directed and animated by Rory Kerr and Paul Ruttledge.