Cut Copy bassist Ben Browning released his solo debut Turns a
few weeks back, and he’s just shared a video for album track “Friends
Of Mine.” It’s a nostalgia-bound look at what goes on in a single
apartment, with a cast of characters going about their daily lives with a
rote boredom as Browning looks on and explores with an almost morbid
curiosity. Girls start Alex Karpovsky, who directed and appeared in Tanlines’ “Palace” video last week, also shows up here.
Elliot Moss is a 21-year-old synth-folker from New York, whose debut album, Highspeeds, builds off the foundation of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago and skates off into the future. “Best Light”
is the last track on the album, and today we’re premiering the
flickering, shadowy video that accompanies it. Instead of opting for
maximum brightness, Moss reels things in, appearing in bursts and blips
throughout the clip’s mostly dark mood.
Father John Misty has been doing a lot of covers
lately, and he recently trotted out another one during a live acoustic
session for the Canadian network CBC. Perhaps as a nod to his Canadian
hosts, he covered Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs,”
playing a lovely take of the song entirely solo and acoustic in what
looks like an old tool shed. Back when he was still Josh Tillman, Father
John Misty grew up in Rockville, Maryland, which is one suburb-ass
suburb. It couldn’t have been too hard for him to access the song’s
feelings.
If you’ve seen Orphan Black, you know that Tatiana Maslany
can act her way out of anything and, even if you haven’t, you’ve
probably heard rumblings on the internet of how great a performance she
gives. Son Lux came up with the idea for their “You Don’t Know Me”
video with her in mind, and she turns the standard trope of
dissatisfied housewife into something compelling and menacing without
doing anything showy. Maslany mouths along to the words opposite her
husband, played by Looper’s Noah Segan, and directs a cult-like
group of individuals through some ritualistic practices. It’s a
chilling, cold video — watch below, and read some words from director
Nathan Johnson about how it all came together.
When Ryan first sent the album over to The Made Shop,
this was the song that I kept coming back to. It touches a pretty raw
nerve, and we wanted to explore the song in terms of the empty rituals
we often see in relationships and, to a larger degree, religion. We
wrote the video specifically for Tatiana and designed everything around
her performance. She’s such a phenomenal actor, and she brings something
so compelling to the role – this powerful figure who is stuck in the
vacancy of routines that have lost their meaning.
I wrote a little bit about Myrkur’s upcoming full-length debut, M, at the beginning of this month, when we heard its lead single, “Hævnen.”
At that point, I hadn’t heard the whole album, but I was excited about
it, based on a bunch of factors, not least of those being the
involvement of producer Kristoffer “Garm” Rygg, who made some of my
favorite records of all time with his band, Ulver. Garm wrote a short
statement about M, which was released along with “Hævnen,” and
in that statement, he said: “It’s no secret that Amalie [Bruun, the
woman behind Myrkur] loves Bergtatt (our first album), and there’s even a song on the album to prove it!” I love Bergtatt, too; I’d include it on the short list of my favorite albums ever, in fact. However, there are no Bergtatt songs covered on M,
prompting me to wonder just what the hell Garm meant when he said,
“there’s even a song on the album to prove it!” I haven’t heard an
answer to that question, but my best guess is, he was talking about
“Onde Børn,” a Myrkur original that sounds a lot like the songs on Bergtatt,
from its structure to its chord progressions to its rhythms to its
vocal/instrumental interplay. I could be totally wrong, of course! But I
think you could sequence “Onde Børn” pretty seamlessly into Bergtatt.
It wouldn’t necessarily make the album better — it’s a perfect album!
It can’t be any better than it already is! — but it wouldn’t make it
worse. Since “Hævnen,” I’ve heard M in full, and I absolutely
love it — it’s one of the best things I’ve heard in 2015 — but “Onde
Børn” is my favorite song on the record. Today, Myrkur releases the song
as a single accompanied by a video, in which the scenery and her
physicality are paired nicely with the track. You can watch/listen now.
Below the clip, I’ve embedded Ulver’s “I Troldskog Faren Vild,” the song
that opens Bergtatt, so you can better understand the
comparison I’m making. Both songs are outstanding, and you should listen
to both, because they’re better than anything else you’ll hear today.
Do it.
Austin’s Sweet Spirit have already caught the attention of Spoon
frontman Britt Daniel, who recently brought the band on tour and
collaborated on a 7″ that features “Have Mercy” and a cover of Spoon’s “Paper Tiger.”
Now, they return with a vaudeville-style video for their self-titled EP
track “Baby Doll,” directed by John Valley. It’s an envious love song
with one of the best scheming verses of advice — “Gotta make friends
with the pretty girls/ ‘Cause then when their boyfriends get tired of
them, they’ll come to me.” The video features a cross-dressing, Sweet
Spirit-obsessed fan, as he sings to a group of tied-up beauties. It’s
very Silence Of The Lambs, but in a burlesque setting.
Earlier this year, EDM superstars Diplo and Skrillex teamed up as Jack Ü and released their surprise debut Skrillex And Diplo Present Jack Ü. The surprisingly good Justin Bieber collab “Where Are Ü Now” blew up, and two weeks ago the song was given an entire EP’s worth of remixes and a lyric video.
Now it’s got an honest-to-god official video as well, which maintains
the loose collage-y vibe of the lyric video by colorfully painting all
sorts of zany stuff on top of the Biebs. It’s pretty cool-looking!
It’s been exactly a year since we premiered
TOPS’ single “Sleeptalker,” and today the Montreal-based Arbutus
Records signees have finally presented us with an accompanying video.
TOPS’ 2014 full-length, Picture You, made our list of the 50 Best Albums Of 2014 for its ability to calm your nerves and rearrange a shitty day with its
hybridized shoegaze-inspired psych, and the Sadie Holliday-directed
video for “Sleeptalker” is a lackadaisical ode to hanging out. The band
rehearses in various intimate, enclosed spaces to recreate the nostalgia
of a dusty home video.
On An On – “It’s Not Over” (Dir. Carlos Lopez Estrada)
The cliched couple-parting movie scene becomes a surreal video game,
and it all ends with a really great video punchline. This is one of
those rare times when willfully bad CGI works better than anything
halfway believable.
Raury’s latest single, “Devil’s Whisper,”
unravels in three movements; the first part initiates with the
19-year-old musician singing from the perspective of the devil with the
twanging enunciation that gestures back to his Southern origins, while
the latter two parts follow Raury’s voice as it returns to its mortal
body while the tempo gains momentum. Spitfire verses overwhelm the
resounding chorus reminiscent of a work song (“you better run from the
devil”) before Raury’s tone becomes increasingly defiant: “I’m not
trying to be a preacher, I was never a reverend/ But I can take your ass
to church and show you glimpses of heaven.” The accompanying video
finds Raury battling demonic forces that’ve infiltrated the bodies of
his fans and loved ones as darkened farmhouses molt into idyllic midday
pastoral scenes.
British duo Honne’s plush R&B just keeps getting better. Their Coastal Love
EP, which came out in May, is a brief four-song collection of tracks
that strike a balance between traditional piano chords, rich harmonies,
and electronic textures. We premiered their Darondo cover “Didn’t I” and saw the fantasy-heavy video for the title track.
Now they’ve shared the video for “Top To Toe,” a mostly
black-and-white, subdued visual that was filmed in Berlin and directed
by Danilo Parra. The fairly straightforward clip features footage from
Andy and James (they forego last names) performing and playing music.
I like when you can hear the seams of how a song came together — the
stitches where absent-minded strumming turned into the hypnotic
instrumental hook at the center of “The Crow,” or the branches of the
instinctual decision tree that led Sean Henry to layer the vocals in a
certain way or set the drums up to stutter along at such a speed. You
can hear all these vestiges of creation when listening to this song, but
that doesn’t mean the pathway to get there was predictable or easy. As a
member of like-minded deconstructions High Pop or under his old solo name Boy Crush,
Henry makes music that stabs at the heart while retaining a poised
sense of form and structure. He lifts up the dusty floorboards of his
memory and stares down at the rotting wood underneath. On “The Crow,” he
makes you feel the inky jet black of the titular bird, looming overhead
with a shadow that swallows up the sun. The disaffected “oh no” that
punctuates the song sounds like inevitability and resignation. His new
record, It’s All About Me
— the first under his own name — is a trudge back through time, step by
painful step, as Henry attempts to piece together why he everything
ended up feeling so bleak. Check the song out below, along with a video
directed by Ryan Schnackenberg.
Big Sean continues to release videos to accompany tracks off his new album, Dark Sky Paradise. Last week he shared the moving, police-violence commentary “One Man Can Change The World”
video. Today’s clips swiftly change gears; “I Know” features Jhene Aiko
and Sean costumed to look like they’re senior citizens who quickly
escape the confines of a senior center’s dance. Maybe if their “aged
makeup” was more comprehensive this video wouldn’t be as unsettling. The
“I Know” video was directed by Lawrence Lamont. The second video is for
“All Your Fault” and features — who else? — Kanye West. It was directed
by Mark Mayer and Aaron Platt. It sounds like a companion piece to “All
Day” spiked with one of Kanye’s signature disco-flipped samples and 808s & Heartbreaks era Auto-Tune. It’s hard not to hear the self-loathing on this song as a
B-side to “Runaway.” Oh yeah, and Big Sean raps a few verses too. The
video is mostly shots of Big Sean and Kanye performing and video babes
smoldering.
Earlier this year we shared the nine-minute cityscape video directed by Shilling & Shilling for the Amazing’s “Picture You,” the title track off the Swedish quintet’s latest album. Today we’re premiering the murky video for the record’s third single, “Safe Island,”
which takes place in the small English beachside village of
Birchington-On-Sea. The black-and-white video becomes psychedelic by the
end, as the footage rewinds under an overlay of vibrant shades of pink —
an effect rendered by burning celluloid film — to accompany the song’s
concluding moments of reverb and screeching effects. Shilling &
Shilling commented on the inspiration behind the video:
Part of concept was a continuation from the previous
video, “Picture You” — exploring the main character of the woman further
and the idea of someone watching and following her. The idea came from
the title of the track and its sound. They both have a kind of nostalgic
happiness for the first section – but the end re-contextualises
everything, making it feel pretty dark. So for the second half we tried
to flip those feelings on their head and imply something a bit dark or
nightmarish. To convey that, we went for a lot of static shots – kind of
strange picture postcards that bring back a smash of memories. We also
used odd close ups — a bit stalkerish or like a lover’s old memory,
straddling the line of both we hope.
“I Can’t Lose” comes from Mark Ronson’s funk ode Uptown Special, which came in at No. 21 on our 50 Best Albums
list, and the track has just gotten a slick video. Ronson and featured
vocalist Keyone Starr roll up in an old-fashioned car, surrounding by
bright billboards and some prominent product placement. They perform at a
’70s-inspired speakeasy that’s fronting what looks to be an underground
gambling ring, and it all culminates in a dance-off with some Scott Pilgrim-style effects. And it turns out that Ronson and Starr were pulling a fast one all along.
This is not a new song from Mogwai; in fact, it’s a very old one. But
it is the start of a new era for the Scottish post-rock group, who will
ring in their 20th year together this summer. Like many legacy acts,
they’re releasing a career-spanning album to commemorate the
anniversary. It’s called Central Belters and will be a 3xCD and
6xLP set. Along with this, they’ve released a new video for 1997 single
“New Paths To Helicon, Pt. 1,” more commonly known as “Helicon 1.” The
visual was shot by Craig Murray, who also worked with the band on the
video for “Teenage Exorcists.”
Murray pieced this clip together from 35mm stills taken in Okinawa,
Kyoto, and Osaka, and talks a little bit about that process:
The film you see is made from 100% 35mm stills which I
shot off the screen: I used about 100+ rolls which were all individually
scanned. All effects you see in the film are physical workings of the
negatives (scanner compositing, scratching, liquids etc.). Given the
logistics of shooting everything discreetly and also in the sea, the
original footage was all shot on an iPhone and a go-pro, with some
addition animation using 35mm.
Tinashe’s icy, barbed R&B is usually noted for its sensuality,
but the complexity she gives that subject on “Cold Sweat” and elsewhere
stretches way beyond sex. When her debut, Aquarirus, came out
and this was certainly a record that existed as a whole with no filler
between the popular radio singles. “Cold Sweat” is one of those that my
have gone under the radar, but now she’s released a video for the song
that should change all that. All I can think while watching this clip is
that Tinashe must have been watching some FKA Twigs, because her
fractured, fluid dancing here is on a whole new level. This song is just
as much about being alone with your desire as it is about fulfilling
it, and Tinashe conveys both that desolation and yearning in the clip.
Watch the Stephen Garnett-directed video below, and if it leaves you
needing more from Tinashe, get her new mixtape Amethyst right here.
Decades ago, the French synth wizard Jean-Michel Jarre helped will
electronic music into existence, and now he’s collaborated with M83 on a
new track called “Glory.” Director Lisa Paclet’s
new video for the song looks more like a Nike commercial than a music
video, even if its various hyper-stylized takes on sports like archery
and track don’t make any actual sense.
Soon after the release of the first single off her upcoming album, Abyss, Chelsea Wolfe shared another new track, “Carrion Flowers” — which was featured in the trailer for Dark Places.
And now Wolfe delivers the perfect black-and-white video for the song,
with eerie images shot in California and New York. Directed by Wolfe and
bandmate Ben Chisolm, the video alludes to the California drought and
frustration toward corporations, as the environment and communities are
destroyed. Wolfe is a haunting, blurry figure in an industrialized and
stark desert. As she explains:
While writing Abyss, I lived near where the
water is piped into Los Angeles, but the lakes were dried up and the
mountains were burned from fires. During filming we were exploring
cracked lake beds and washed out roads – at one point I was laying in
the middle of an abandoned canyon road with no chance of a car coming,
and it was very surreal and quiet. I closed my eyes for a moment and
when I opened them there were vultures circling overhead like I was some
exotic roadkill, so we filmed them too.
Only Girlpool could put out a 40-second video that is still
completely essential viewing. The “Magnifying Glass” video was created
by Craig Scheihing, and it operates like a flipbook, whisking through
images of Cleo Tucker, Harmony Tividad, and friends playing with flowers
and dirt. One of the most appealing things about Tucker and Tividad’s
aesthetic is how simple it is. They don’t try to gussy anything up that
doesn’t need to be. They manage to say and show more in 40 seconds of
concentrated energy than some bands relate in four- or five-minute
missives.
Shura released her spacebound synth-disco epic “White Light” at the beginning of the month, and just yesterday it was given a propulsive new remix by Factory Floor’s Gabe Gurnsey. Today, it’s getting even more love, in the form of a new video directed by Noel Paul of That Go.
“White Light” was inspired by Shura’s twin brother before it morphed
into an alien metaphor-wielding ode to social misfits, so it makes sense
that he stars in the video as a sweet-faced extraterrestrial. The clip
is a fairly straightforward interpretation of the song’s lyrics, but
they’re brought to gorgeous, striking life here, shot on 35mm film in
England’s scenic Cheddar Gorge.
Portishead production mastermind Geoff Barrow also leads the
improv-based, krautrock-influenced trio BEAK>, and they’re about to
release a new split EP with themselves. On the BEAK KAEB EP, they record two songs under the name BEAK and two more under the name KAEB, and we’ve already posted KAEB’s video for “When We Fall.”
Now BEAK have posted their clip for “The Meader,” and it’s pretty
unsettling. The whole video is a herky-jerk point-of-view shot, and we
see the perspective of someone scrambling along a train platform and
running through the streets of some unnamed town. It all leads weird
places in the final seconds. James Hankins directed it.
Last month we learned that Cursive frontman Tim Kasher would be
reactivating his solo side project-turned-band, the Good Life, with
their fifth full-length album Everybody’s Coming Down — their first release in eight years. We already got a peek via the guitar-heavy single “Everybody“,
and now another: “The Troubadour’s Green Room,” which is more in line
with their indie-folk style. With a prominent bass and slight echoing
guitars, the track is Kasher’s self-reflection on his career and place
in music. He remembers the days when he dreamed of seeing his face on
the cover of an LP, but his ambitious haze has dissolved over the years.
He now knows the Troubadour’s green room looks bigger from the outside.
But he’s not stopping — not until the “wishing well runs dry.”
Black Hippy tough guy Jay Rock featured on Kendrick’s Good Kid, m.A.A.d City track “Money Trees,” and he dropped a sequel, “Money Trees Deuce,”
a few weeks ago. Now that sequel has been given a video, which features
Jay Rock running around L.A. along with some very cool shots of time,
cars, and people moving in reverse.
Lianne La Havas manages to make every word she sings sound like it
delights her more than the previous one. She has one of those velvety
voices that never flubs a note, never falters. In the video for “What
You Don’t Do,” she takes the sensibilities of doo-wop and updates them
with jittery piano, bursts of brass, and that flawless voice like a
cherry on top. The song relies on a negative turn of phrase to convey an
ecstatic message; it’s the games she isn’t forced to endure, it’s the
simple silences that convince her of this relationship’s veracity. Like
the video for “Unstoppable,”
this clip centers around La Havas relishing in her affection, flashing
through the frame in beautiful, bright outfits and a signature grin. The
video was created by Leila & Damien de Blinkk.
Tanlines’ great sophomore album, Highlights, came out in
May, and today they share the video for “Palace.” It features a whole
host of people you’ll probably recognize. The clip was written and
directed by Alex Karpovsky of Girls and Teddy Blanks (who composed the score for Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture). It stars Karpovsky, along with Natasha Lyonne of Orange Is the New Black, Ben Sinclair of the still-underrated online video series High Maintenance, and Leo Fitzpatrick of Kids.
Of course, Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm show up as well to take part in
dramatic breakups, counseling sessions and songwriting attempts. Don’t
worry though — even after several suicide attempts are depicted, the
video ends on something of a high note.
Mastodon have been having a lot of fun as a band lately, selling booty shorts and turning up on Game Of Thrones. Their new video for “Asleep In The Deep,” from last year’s Once More ‘Round The Sun
album, is as fun as anything they’ve done lately. It tells the story of
a cat who disappears through a doggy door and visits another dimension,
coming in contact with all sorts of freaky puppet demons and becoming a
freaky puppet himself. The puppetry in the video is just incredible,
and the cat-wrangling is pretty impressive, too. Video Rahim co-directed the absurd, imaginative video with Shane Morton and Mastodon album-cover artist Skinner. It’ll air on Adult Swim at 4AM tonight, but you can watch it right now below.
How did Alison Mosshart never get her own Sons Of Anarchy
story arc? Plenty of other musicians did, and in retrospect, the
Kills/Dead Weather singer would’ve been perfect for one of that show’s
many femme fatale roles. Instead, she’ll have to content herself with
throwing back drinks and enjoying a friendly game of Russian roulette
with a bunch of Sons Of Anarchy dudes in a new music video. Songwriter Bob Theile Jr. worked as the music director on Sons Of Anarchy,
and he put together a band called the Forest Rangers to record some of
its grimy blues-rock songs. They’re now about to release an album called
Land Ho!, and Mosshart shows up to sing the song “Trying To Believe” and to star in the accompanying video. In director Kenneth Cappello’s clip, Mosshart, Theile, and Sons Of Anarchy
cast members Mark Boone, Jr., Niko Nicotera, Dayton Callie, and Michael
Ornstein take turns showing off their intense-flinching skills.
“Timebomb” is one of the best songs on Tove Lo’s fantastic debut album, Queen Of The Clouds,
and it’s deservedly getting the single treatment, and now has a slick
new video to go along with it. Tove Lo looks defeated as she sits at the
center of the a stage in the middle of a beach, as couples dramatically
reenact the push and pull of a relationship played out on the same
backdrop, careening towards an inevitable, unfortunate end.
It’s probably impossible for Atlanta rap presence ILoveMakonnen to
have as big a year in 2015 as he did last year. But thus far this year,
he’s released a mixtape, greatly improved A$AP Rocky’s SXSW experience, and helped shift rap’s cultural barriers. That’s still pretty good! And now he’s got a new video for his one-off track “Super Chef.”
Awful Records boss Father directed the video, and it has the same murky
DIY charm as so many of that crew’s own videos. Makonnen spends the
whole clip in someone’s kitchen, smoking weed and cooking broccoli.
Various Awful affiliates show up in the background, as do Rome Fortune
and one white guy with dreads.
London quartet Boxed In — featuring Oli Bayston, formerly of the
Manchester band Keith — released their self-titled debut album earlier
this year, and have since played SXSW and were invited by KCRW to play
with TV On The Radio at one of the KCRW Sound In Focus free concerts next month. Today, we’ve got Boxed In’s video for “False Alarm,” a
track off the self-titled record. The video doesn’t stray from a scene
of the quartet playing in the moonlight, carrying our ears via a basic
but infectious bass line and a Todd Terje-sounding piano riff. Later,
the scene is enhanced with a 3D-glasses filter.
The early weeks of summer always feel nostalgic, and before it gets
way too hot to enjoy being outside, there’s nothing more enjoyable than
chilling in a backyard with a grill and a keg and close company. Future
Islands’ “A Song For Our Grandfathers” dropped on 2014’s Singles,
and the new video features the band performing in an idyllic country
backyard for a family reunion. This is a song about finding solace in
familial ties when life gets messy, even when important members have
long since passed, and the Jay Buim-directed video is a poignant
accompaniment just in time for Father’s Day.
True Detective was a regular featured player back when we ranked the best soundtrack moments of each month,
and the show returned to HBO for its second season last night with an
updated opening credits sequence to match the mood of the new locale and
characters. The show’s music supervisor, T. Bone Burnett, chose Leonard
Cohen’s “Nevermind” as the theme for the new season, a song that
appears in completed form on his 2014 album Popular Problems, but started its existence as a poem back in 2005. Check out the new opening credits sequence below.
Bryan Cranston is one of those insanely talented famous people who
also just seems like a pretty fun dude. EDM fest Electric Daisy Carnival
kicked off this weekend, and UK trance crew Above And Beyond played a
headlining set last night. They have a song called “Walter White” — named, of course, for Cranston’s chemistry teacher-cum-meth kingpin character in the show Breaking Bad — so naturally, Bryan Cranston himself came out to introduce it, growling “Say my name!”
and dramatically pressing the button to start the song. He then spent
the next minute or so bouncing around the stage like a big goofball, and
you can watch it below.
Leaving EDC - Vegas right now. Pulled an all nighter. Old, my ass...
Old, my head. Old, my feet...
Happy Fathers Day! pic.twitter.com/uZ4k61rsBE
Big Sean’s new album Dark Sky Paradise seems to have finally rescued him from being the butt of every rap joke. Tom lauded the record in his rap column, and both “IDFWU” and “Blessings”
are undeniably great songs, even as they express completely opposite
emotions. His latest single “One Man Can Change The World” once again
features high profile guests — Kanye West and John Legend both
contribute renditions of the chorus. Today, he’s released a black and
white video for the song that addresses gun violence, death, and the
experience of children who grow up surrounded by these things. Shots of
Big Sean carrying a coffin are interspersed with a young kid who is
mourning the death, as well as scenes with police dressed in riot gear
standing in the neighborhood streets. The video was directed by Andrew
Hines and Jeff Powers.
Happy Father’s Day, y’all! The Atlanta Awful Records leader Father surprise-released his depraved DIY rap opus Who’s Gonna Get Fucked First? a few months ago, and today, we’re getting a new video for its title track. Directed by Ryan Staake of Pomp&Clout,
the video is an uncomfortably close-up depiction of debauchery with a
lot of mouths and fleshy bits that manages to make sexy times look like
the Blair Witch Project. It’s a pretty good approximation of how Father
songs sound!
Last week Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder showed up to a Supersuckers
gig at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern, a fact that is even more incredible if
you know how small that venue is. At the 6/9 show Vedder and the band
covered The Ramones’ “I Believe In Miracles.”
The song carried more emotional weight than it usually might, as Supersuckers frontman Eddie Spaghetti was diagnosed with oropharynx (throat) cancer
this week. A mass of cancerous cells in his neck were found to be stage
3 cancer on Monday, and last night the band played their final gig for a
while. Spaghetti is scheduled for surgery in L.A. on 6/29, followed by 6
weeks of radiation. His wife, Jessika Daly, penned a moving letter
about the family’s situation and has launched a YouCaring campaign to
raise funds to help offset medical costs. Unfortunately, this news also
means the Supersuckers have canceled their European tour and put all
plans for a new album on hold.
The beginning of the video for Ryn Weaver’s “Traveling Song” is a
clip of her at a live show dedicating the track to her grandpa Max. She
says he had a really hard year but made it out to the show that night
and she’s so thankful to have him there. While we don’t know the
circumstances, the deep vulnerability and emotion is clear, and those
feelings permeate this entire video. It’s a song about missing someone
you love who is far away, and the video is mostly home-video footage of
childhood Ryn that was shot by her grandfather. Though it was the
glitchy pop-chirrup of “Octahate” that turned Weaver into something of an internet pop sensation, this song is more Zee Avi than Katy Perry. It’s closer to the sound of her album’s title track, “The Fool,”
but strips things back even further. There’s barely any instrumentation
here aside from a calm, clean acoustic-guitar and Weaver’s warbly alto.
It’s a Ryn Weaver version of a folk song, and she gets into tender
minutia like a young Paul Simon. The mini spoken-word monologue that
caps off this song reveals just how much her grandfather inspired her;
it’s an intimate, lovely tribute that reveals a whole different side of
Weaver’s songwriting.
“Double Talk”
was the first single off Jaakko Eino Kalevi’s lush self-titled new
album. Today he’s shared a simple, pastel-hued video to accompany it.
Between shots of slow-sliding white goo — apparently it’s magma — Kalevi
sings with his eyes averted from the camera, like an ex-pat longing for
home. The Finnish musician has, in fact, defected to Berlin in order to
pursue the arts, and this song is the finest result of his move. It’s
also the saddest; the one most filled with a wistful yearning for a
language that connects instead of confounds. Watch the video, which was
made by Blank Blank Film and Sirio Magnabosco.
Beirut’s first album in four years, No No No, will be out in September. They shared the title track
along with the album details a few weeks ago, and have debuted a video
for that song today. Zach Condon’s thoughtful, warm voice is still the
driving force on this song, accompanied by brass flourishes and
skittering percussion. Directed by Brother Willis, the video is a play
off the classic American Bandstand set, with primary word “No”
popping up in unexpected places and ways. The set is also plagued with
absurd distractions and twists on the typical buttoned-up TV-show
appearance.
New wave trio Strange Names have left their Midwest roots behind for a
new home with Frenchkiss Records in Brooklyn. Their debut album Use Your Time Wisely
came out last month and is a synth-infused dance party from start to
finish. Now Strange Names have released their music video for “I Can’t
Control Myself,” yet another catchy track following in the footsteps of “Neighborhood,”
proving that these guys aren’t ’80s one-hit-wonders even if they are
pretty ’80s. Director Joshua Sanchez follows the trio through record
stores, under bridges, and around the aisles of convenience stores, all
while grooving and looking like extras from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Strange Names aren’t all fun and games; Liam Benzvi’s soothing voice often delivers calculated and critical lyrics.
Madonna’s new album Rebel Heart was something of a mixed bag,
but there was one straight-up radio banger: “Bitch I’m Madonna.” This
is one of those choruses that you can’t help but repeat back to
yourself. The song features Nicki Minaj, so for the video Madonna
capitalized on the A-list pop star roster video trend (note this “Bad Blood”-reminiscent promo poster)
and enlisted Minaj, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Rita Ora, and
Miley Cyrus. They all appear briefly mouthing the song’s signature
phrase: “Bitch I’m Madonna.” Interestingly, Minaj only appears via
screen which suggests she shot her part separately. The concept for the
video is pretty similar to the live performance Madonna did on Jimmy Fallon,
but cameos from Chris Rock and nearly every huge name in music are much
more entertaining than Diplo’s DJ face (though he’s in there too). Does
anyone else find Madonna’s grill more distracting than anything else?
The video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund.
Tidal subscribers can watch the whole thing here.
For the rest of us, they’ve uploaded a behind-the-scenes/teaser that
should tide us over until the video inevitably leaks.
UPDATE: Here’s the inevitable leak of the full video, watch below:
Johnny Marr has shared a video for “Candidate,” a track off of Playland, his solo album from last year. The song is being released as a single 7″ later this month. The video is pretty straight-forward,
showing the band putting together the track in the studio, along with
some shots of Marr looking intensely at the camera thrown in for good
measure.
The reunited Swedish post-hardcore outfit Refused will release their
first album since 1998 at the end of June. We’ve already heard three
songs off of Freedom, “Elektra,” “Françafrique,” and “Dawkins Christ,”
which now has an accompanying video. The cut-and-paste collection of
dark imagery steals from a variety of sources, most notably, a
Hieronymus Bosch painting. The work depicted might be the renaissance
painter’s great work The Garden Of Earthly Delights, but it’s
not totally clear with the rapid-fire editing. Regardless, this is a
hellish accompaniment to an already confrontational song.
Washington singer-songwriter Briana Marela’s new song “Surrender”
whispers in loops, her voice a whirlwind of coos and stretched
vocalizations. It’s a little bit Grimes a lot Sigur Rós, whose producer
Alex Somers also worked with Marela on her upcoming debut, All Around Us.
The video for the track is a series of fast visualizations, which
director Christin Turner describes as depicting a “the torrent of
emotions associated with falling in love as blips and signals reaching
through the darkness, sparking a supernova of light, motion, and
beauty.”
Joey Bada$$ released his debut LP B4.DA.$$ earlier this
year, and today we’re getting a new video for the DJ Premier-produced
track “Paper Trail$.” Directed by Tom Gould, the clip isn’t quite as
dark as the affecting “Like Me”
video, but it’s definitely still on the gloomy end of the spectrum.
Gould matches the thematic concerns of the song with beautifully shot
black-and-white vignettes about the struggle for cash and its negative
influence on the world.
Last week, we were introduced to the weirdly wonderful world of Katie Dey through her debut release, asdfasdf,
and now the Melbourne-based songwriter has shared a video for
“unkillable,” a squelching cut from the album. Gorgeously illustrated by
Toby Garrow, the clip opens
on a forest of paper trees as an animated woodsmen lumbers forth with
an axe, attempting to cut through a stump but getting sucked into the
forest instead. What follows is a series of swift metamorphoses, from
flowers to bunnies to a deer to a mushroom, ending up right where it
began. Omne vivum ex vivo — all life comes from life.
So far we’ve heard two soothing singles off of Aussie indie-pop band Alpine’s upcoming album Yuck.
“Damn Baby” goes another route full of upbeat pop sensibilities. It’s a
loud and brassy feel-good song. You can see how much fun the band
members are having simply being together in director Tim Royall’s
minimalist black and white video. And they aren’t taking themselves too
seriously. The video is mixed with repeating scenes and random bursts of
color that replicates the surge of musical energy in the song. It makes
you just want to get up and join them.
As a writer, it’s always really fun when your vague assumptions about
a song’s meaning are justified. When I wrote about Mates Of State’s
single “Staring Contest,”
I mentioned all of its allusions to young love and the kind of reckless
abandon that comes with being a tween. Mates Of State released a video
for the single that validates all of my points, and the venture happens
to be a family affair. Directed by Will Kindrick, the video stars Mates
Of States’ Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel alongside their daughters
Magnolia and June; read what the couple had to say about the video and
watch it below:
Based on a true story of our daughter June’s intro to her
class. Kids are allowed to bring in a book to read to the class. June
instead chose to sing an Adele song to them. We re-imagined this
performance into a full-on blow out party. During the song bridge, we
play homage to the fight scene in Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video. The
kids skipped school, we flew to California to film in Pasadena.
Mac DeMarco has done it again. His newest release Another One is self-described as a mini-album,
but the songs he’s put out so far have been anything but miniature. The
title trick “Another One” was released today via a goofy video, and
it’s just as lush and expansive as “The Way You’d Love Her.”
In the video DeMarco plays drums, keyboard, and guitar in the middle of
the ocean and while sitting in green, vivid vegetation. He sports what
looks like a hand-made Michael Jackson shirt and a Viceroy hat throughout, and in the beginning is wearing an MJ mask. The whole
thing plays out like a cheesy ’80s home video, belying how forlorn the
song is. DeMarco does goofy so well that even though he’s gone lovesick
here, you almost don’t notice.
Miguel’s new album WILDHEART is very good and builds on the heady tangle of psychedelia and R&B that he already established on foundational album Kaleidoscope Dream. “Coffee”
is the lead single off this album, and despite that hiccup with the
Wale verse, it’s shaping up to be a contender for the sexiest song of
the summer. The video does it further justice, portraying Miguel and his
blue-haired muse in the shower, tussling in bed, and falling in love
bathed in the blue light of a neon cross. I never really noticed how
much religious imagery there is in the lyrics until that cross kept
popping up during their make-out sessions. The real beauty of this song,
though, is that despite celebrating the sexuality the couple shares, it
zeroes in on the tiny pleasure of sharing coffee together the next day.
It’s filled with a romantic, sexy mess of longing while still
illuminating the day-to-day details of what makes a relationship really
worthwhile. There’s not even a single cup of coffee in the video,
though, which I found disappointing.
Minneapolis’ Hippo Campus came onto the scene last fall with their debut EP Bashful Creatures, garnering comparisons to Vampire Weekend
with their lack of guitar effects and vocalist Jake Luppen’s
Koenig-esque yelping. With gigs opening for My Morning Jacket, Real
Estate, and Modest Mouse coming up, Hippo Campus are coming more into
their own with the video for “Suicide Saturday,” a hooky pop-rock track
off their Bashful Creatures EP. Director Balint Revesz’s video
features all four band members flailing around with confetti, paint
splatter, and silly string.
Ratatat are readying Magnifique, their first new album in five years, and so far, we’ve heard “Cream On Chrome” and the intro track.
Now, the duo have shared another new one called “Abrasive,” which
doesn’t really live up to its name. Instead, it’s a smooth as hell
disco-inspired number that’s accompanied by some visuals hand-drawn by
E.VAX of black-and-white sketched figures.
How could you expect a rapper who named himself right out of the
present moment to ever stop going in? Future continues to fulfill his
own self-dubbed destiny, perpetually pushing himself ever onward. So,
he’s given us yet another new video, this time for “Never Gon Lose,”
doubling down on his promise to be forever with us. This song is full of
some especially dark and brilliant wordplay from Future: “Sip on the
lean like a fifth of the dark.” Attempting to unpack that line, I’m
still awed by the ominous sensibility it contains; lean is comparable to
a fifth of alcohol, but the distillery it comes from is darkness? How
anyone can argue that rap isn’t poetry is beyond me. The Spiff
TV-directed video is also great because Future does a lot of dancing,
and he seems to be amping up that aspect of his performance more and
more in videos. I’m here for it. The only thing I’m not here for,
really, is the annoying DJ Esco drop that’s littered throughout the
video. This is from a mixtape, after all.
Jessy Lanza is one of those singers whose voice seems destined for
electronic music. She’s fallen in with Teklife, one of the central crews
of the footwork movement, and collaborated with two of its members, DJ
Spinn and Taso, for “You Never Show Your Love.” Today that track gets a
video, directed by John Smith, that features Lanza playing and singing
alone in a parking lot. Alone except for the two blow-up wind dancers
who move alongside her, that is. Lanza has a new EP coming out next
month and it’s shaping up to be an icy blast, the perfect antidote to
all of summer’s muggy humidity.
Baltimore’s electronic powerhouse Dan Deacon shares his latest and
wonderfully bizarre video for “Meme Generator,” a computer glitchy trip
off the recent album Gliss Riffer.
Deacon takes you into a game reality of programmed dance, where players
are downloaded into a digital world and four choreographers each
created a sequence for the “liminal” house that flashes in the
background. Director Monica Mirabile says the inspiration for the video was to highlight the ways our bodies are “programmed” by the worlds we live in. There is also an interactive feature for the video that allows viewers to play around with the
dances and find surprises in each one. But as Deacon’s video shows,
we’re already playing this game by living in our shared and marketed
reality.
Chaz Bundick released What For?,
his fourth album as Toro Y Moi, just a few months ago, but he already
has a new track ready to go. The trap-inspired “room for 1zone” is a
change-up, but not exactly a surprising one for someone who seems to
mess with his sound with every album. The new track is accompanied by a
video of a man in a durag dancing in front of the Prada Marfa sculpture in Texas.
You ever get the feeling that you’re about to lose a war? That’s what
watching this video feels like. GENER8TION is a new project from the
French dance producer Surkin, who roped M.I.A. into doing vocals on the
excellent new track “The New International Sound (Pt. II).”
But the track really takes off once you get a look at the video, which
stars tens of thousands of little kids from China who could easily beat
your ass. According to the YouTube description, the clip stars “the
36,000 students of Shaolin Tagou, the biggest fighting school for kids
in China.” Watching all these kids in action is just breathtaking.
Director Inigo Westmeier adapted the video from his own 2012 documentary
Dragon Girls, and you can watch.
Last time Natalie Prass released a video, it was the face-morphing “Why Don’t You Believe In Me,”
a somewhat chilling visual representation of the way the doubts of
others can undermine our confidence. “Bird Of Prey” couches similarly
dark themes in Prass’ impossibly sweet voice and heaps of elegant string
work, but the video is light as can be. It’s almost childish with its
bright, primary colors and carefree spirit, even as Prass sings about a
lover who functioned like a predator. The clip was was directed by Malia
James of the Dum Dum Girls.
We premiered “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive”
along with an extensive cover story on Death Cab For Cutie back in
March when the song came out. Now the group have shared a video to
accompany the track off their new album Kintsugi. Director
Robert Hales’ black and white clip is a fairly literal interpretation of
the song’s subject matter, as Gibbard guides a sight-seeing bus full of
tourists through one of L.A.’s ubiquitous star watching tours. It’s
hard not to imagine Gibbard is thinking of his ex-wife, actress/musician
Zooey Deschanel, while he gazes moodily at the emblems of Hollywood.
In 2012, the French cellist Gaspar Claus asked 11 musicians to
partake in a one-time-only collaborative performance piece that took
place over the course of a night at Littlefield in Brooklyn. Claus’
invitation list included Sufjan Stevens, Pedro Soler, Bryce Dessner,
Jessie Stein (of The Luyas), David Moore (of Bing & Ruth), Rémi
Alexadre (of Sys Matters and Shorebilly), Ben Greenberg (of the Zs and
the Men), Jessica Larrabee & Andy LaPlant (of She Keeps Bees), Emil
Bognar-Nasdor (of Dawn Of Humans), Mauro Remiddi (of Porcelain Raft),
and Claus’ own sister, Clara who performed alongside Dessner. The 11
musicians performed 11 songs, and the result of the project is One Night Stand, an LP made available through the French crowdsourcing site Microcultures.
Derrick Belcham of the French media house La Blogothèque filmed the
70-minute performance and made short live videos of each song. Today,
we’re premiering the video for the droning, nine-minute composition
“Birth & Death Of A.” Each musician gets a short cameo in the video
(you can spot Stevens about midway through), but the ocean of sound that
they create together is all dependent on Claus’ tightly-wound,
enchanting performance.
Following the premiere of Jessica Zambri’s song “Solvey”
— also her project moniker and upcoming album title — the New York
native premieres her bass guitar heavy video for “The Weight.” Zambri
has gone from experimenting with dark, electronic pop in her former band with her sister to an indie rock record with fuzzy guitar riffs and
personal lyrics that showed an inner exploration. In director Noel
Heroux’s video, Zambri stares emotionless as she strums her bass on a
dark video set. Flashing images reflect off her body as she mouths
screaming motions to the chorus: “Feel the weight change, feel it
shaping.” It’s Zambri at her most stripped-down and raw, exposing it
all.
Shannon Shaw has a hell of a voice. She effortlessly toggles from a
croon to a purr to a rumble, all the while retaining the kind of
magnetic charisma that silences rooms. Her band, the 1950s-flavored
Oakland trio Shannon And The Clams, just announced their fourth LP Gone By The Dawn, which will be out this fall. “It’s not dark, but it’s kind of a devastated album,” Shaw told The Daily Californian.
“Cody [Blanchard, guitarist] and I both ended up going through these
really sad breakups right around the same time, so that’s absolutely
reflected in the work.”
That’s certainly true of first single “Corvette.” The song is
probably the highest-fi they’ve ever sounded, with that voice resting
comfortably in the center of a spacious arrangement of trudging bass and
twangily mournful guitar, and the lyrics manage to simultaneously
convey a very specific heartbreak and puncture the broader fantasy of
the sunglasses-wearing, fast car-driving cool guy. The Loren
Risker-directed video perfectly matches that idea, alternating between
shots of the band performing in black-and-white and a brightly colored,
obviously green-screened romantic ride in the titular Corvette. By the
end, of course, the retro hunk boyfriend is revealed as a fake, a
literal leather-clad Ken doll.
Father John Misty’s sophomore album I Love You, Honeybear
is one of the best LPs we’ve heard this year, and his new video for the
album’s title track is a heavy and bracing piece of work, one worthy of
the album. Josh Tillman, Father John Misty’s alter-ego, co-wrote the
video with his wife Emma Tillman, and he co-directed it with old collaborator Grant James. The video stars Brett Gelman (the comedian who played a naked hippie in the Mad Men series finale) and Susan Traylor (an actress who recently appeared in Greenberg)
as drunk, high emergency medical technicians who try to save Josh and
Emma Tillman from a gas leak. It’s a whole lot to deal with early on a
Monday morning.
Last night, Liam Gallagher and Roger Daltrey led a one-off supergroup
performance of the Who’s “My Generation” on British TV show TFI Friday,
which revived for a two-hour special to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
The group was rounded out by the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie and
former Oasis members Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Zak Starkey (who has
also played with the Who). Blur also showed up to play “Coffee And TV,”
and you can watch both performances below.
Veruca Salt will release their crowdfunded original lineup reunion album, Ghost Notes, next month, and they’ve just shared a video for the lead single “Laughing In The Sugar Bowl,”
which sees the band rocking out in an antiques store while pieces of
paper and some arts-and-crafts ephemera burns up around them. Nina
Gordon and Louise Post are wearing shirts that read “liar” and “poet.”
The clip was directed by Tim Rutilli.
On his absurdly great new Little Wings album Explains,
Kyle Field relishes in hard-earned ambiguity. Is his howling serious?
Is his dancing ironic? How to reconcile the gorgeous, orchestrated folk
of the songs with filtered in bits of white noise and all the lyrical
flotsam? In the video for “Light Brang,” Field answers none of these
questions, opting instead to dance around with sparklers on the Japanese
island of Miyazaki. That the video was shot in the dark is another
layer of irony; Miyazaki is known for its gorgeous scenery, and we see
none of it. Never change, Little Wings.
Thanks to films like Lost In Translation and pretty much
every Wes Anderson movie ever, Bill Murray has made a bit of a second
career for himself playing washed-up, apathetic old men. In Barry
Levinson’s new music biz comedy Rock The Kasbah, well, he’s
still doing that, but in a more overtly comic manner. Murray stars as an
aging tour manager who takes his last remaining client (Zooey
Deschanel) on a USO trip to Afghanistan, where Deschanel’s character
promptly robs him and leaves him stranded without a wallet or passport.
Hijinks ensue, of course, and he eventually meets up with and agrees to
manage a young Afghan girl on her way to Kabul for an American Idol-esque
singing competition. Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Danny McBride, and
Scott Caan also star. You can watch the movie’s first trailer —
soundtracked by David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into
The Fire,” and Bill Murray singing a spirited if not particularly
tuneful rendition of “Smoke On The Water” — below.
Open Mike Eagle wanders through a seemingly typical club scene in his
new video for the Gold Panda-produced “Ziggy Starfish (Anti-Anxiety
Raps).” The video follow the lustful encounter of two intoxicated
clubbers. It all appears pretty serious until you notice special
appearances by Hannibal Buress, Jean Grae, Quelle Chris, and MC
Frontalot throughout the video. As the lovers reach for their first
embrace, Open Mike Eagle stares directly at them with a blank face. When
the couple is feuding, clubbers are blowing bubbles with a dazed Buress
watching the bubbles awe. It’s ostensibly a story about star-crossed
lovers, but you might not notice due to all these hilarious cameos.
Watch director Kris Merc’s video.
Back in spring, Danish prog overlords Mew returned after a six-year silence with +-, a new LP that won Album Of The Week props from us. They’ve already made videos for the album tracks “Satellites” and “Water Slides,”
and now they’ve come up with a novel way to make a clip for the
surging, expansive track “The Night Believer.” In this one, Mew got help
from 1,000 different fans from 65 different countries, and all of them
show up onscreen lip-syncing the song at one point or another. Director William Reynish plunges the band members and the fans into a CGI world that recalls Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and early virtual reality, and most of the fans only appear onscreen
for a few nanoseconds. If you recorded a part for this video, you better
be quick with the pause button if you want to see yourself.
Chimurenga Renaissance — the duo of Shabazz Palaces’ Tendai “Baba”
Maraire and rapper Hussein Kalonji — explore the Great Zimbabwe ruins in
their video for “Pop Killer,” off their Defenders Of The Crusades EP. In the clip, the Zimbabwe-centered hip-hop duo travel to the
ancient city that was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe; Maraire
slowly walks through the hills of stone steps and houses, as the sky
turns to dusk. Traditional African instruments are played throughout the
video, accompanied by dancers at the top of a hill, with the upcoming
sunset serving as a backdrop. Maraire carefully examines his
surroundings with each step and turn until he reaches the top, where he
poses in a prayer position, and the camera pans out to reveal his white
studded outfit has transformed into a colorful African garment. The
politically charged song, focusing on cultural exploration and
commercialism, shows that connecting to your past can create a new path
for the future.
Neil Young and the band Promise Of The Real will release their collaborative album, The Monsanto Years, at the end of this month, and we’ve already heard a live rendition of the title track and seen the video for “A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop.”
Now, Young has debuted another new song off the album, “Wolf Moon,” in
the form of a video. The song’s been played live multiple times before,
and this visual piece is essentially just footage of Young and Promise
Of The Real performing indoors with celestial projections behind them.
Same Trailer, Different Park, the 2013 album from the
country singer Kacey Musgraves, was one of the breeziest and smartest
and most charming mainstream country records I’ve heard in years. Later
this month, she’ll follow it up with a new one called Pageant Material,
and today she’s unveiled the video for its exceedingly amiable first
single “Biscuits.” The clip is a bright, silly tribute to old-timey
variety shows, and she says that she wanted it to look like “Hee-Haw meets Pee Wee’s Playhouse
meets Wes Anderson.” If you’re not enraged with Stereogum for posting a
pop-country video
Saul Williams is a musician who has done everything from work with
Trent Reznor to star as Tupac Shakur on Broadway. Listening to “Burundi,”
it will come as no surprise that he’s also an incredible slam poet. He
lists Beyoncé, Fredo Santana, and Haitian field recordings as his
inspirations, and those disparate influences are completely present on
the track. “Burundi” is the lead single off his sixth album MartyrLoserKing and today he’s doubled down on the ferocious song by releasing an
urgent, roiling video for it. All throughout you can hear the Emily
Kokal of Warpaint’s ghostly, insistent harmonies accompanying his
viciously spat lyrics, while computer code, urban layouts and video
footage of various political uprisings flash behind and around him. This
is protest in motion, a powerful statement from an artist who refuses
to back down or be labeled a victim. He turns anger into fuel, emotions
combusting in aggressive flashes that demands attention. It was directed
by Kivu Ruhorahoza and the graphics are by Antonio Ribeiro.
If I’m properly understanding the arc of the Staves’ recent you-must-hear-this masterpiece If I Was
— and if there is supposed to be an arc at all — the punchy yet
melancholy “Teeth White” is the point when, having licked her wounds
after a bad breakup, our protagonist steels herself to go back on the
town and mix it up again: “I’ve got my teeth white/ And my jeans tight.”
In an email to their mailing list, they explained, “It’s is a song
about feeling like no matter what you do, it’s never good enough. It’s
really a song about the frustration of being held back and not being
free.” So make of that what you will.
The song now has a video, which features the Stavely-Turner sisters
in two scenarios: joyfully performing to an empty Paris barroom and
somewhat awkwardly rocking out in that same barroom while everyone
around ignores them. Again, I’m not 100 percent sure that is what’s
going on here — the clip was filmed by the team from La Blogothèque,
makers of the exquisite Take Away Shows series, so it may just be
designed as a verite performance video — but I am 100 percent sure this
song gets stuck in my head every day and that it’s welcome to do so for
the foreseeable future.
Vic Mensa and Kanye West’s massively brassy “U Mad” now has a video directed by the great Grant Singer (and good for him — back in January, Kanye beat out Singer for the top spot in our 5 Best Videos Of The Week rankings, and now the
two are working together). The ominous track’s visuals feature both
rappers rocking a crowd under some evocative lighting — it’s dark and
strikingly beautiful. There’s also Mensa strapped into a straightjacket,
and some riot police show up at the end to shut things down in violent
fashion.
We just named PINS’ sophomore album Wild Nights our album of the week,
and they’ve responded by sharing a video for “Everyone Says,” a
mellowed out track from their new record. It was shot by guitarist Lois
Macdonald in shaky black-and-white with a Super 8 and, as lead singer
Faith Vern explained to The New York Times,
the video is about “someone really upset and contemplating whether they
wanted to live. By the end of it we wanted it to look like they were
reborn and survived.” It features a lot of smoking and staring off into
the distances, bubblebaths and a big glass of wine.
Everything seems to be going wrong in Brooklyn transplants Dances’
new video for their track “Holy Fool,” a song that bears the definite
influence of Britpop in general and Blur in specific, particularly
singer Trevor Vaz’s rough, apathetic voice. Minuscule accidents create
an uncontrollable chaos: Milk is poured over a bell jar containing a
dead duckling, coffee is dumped on cars and people, cigarettes are
flicked away at the start of a make-out session, a cereal-filled piñata
is slashed with a samurai sword. All the while everyone remains passive,
as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. The video is shot
entirely in slow-motion, making for absolutely stunning visuals. It’s
strangely satisfying, watching destruction ensue. Alec Macdonald and
Bernardo Garcia direct.
Björk’s “Black Lake” video has been on view at New York’s MoMA for awhile now, but unless you made it to the controversial retrospective
of the Icelandic artist’s work, then chances are that this will be the
first time you’ve seen the piece in full. Björk advertised the Andrew
Thomas Huang-directed video in a trailer that surfaced way back in February around the time that Vulnicura
dropped, promising that it would be an impressive, epic visualization
of one of the most gut-wrenching songs on the record. Björk’s work is as
much an auditory experience as it is a visual spectacle, which is why
it’s so exciting every time she drops a new video. Usually she’s
costumed and made to look mystical — her limbs elongated in the
accompanying video for “Lionsong,” her chest sprouting roots in the one for “Family”
— but in this new piece, Björk looks kind of ordinary. Her outfits are
elaborate, but her face is totally unmasked, adding an extra layer of
exposure to the already raw song. Björk told Dazed the following about the piece:
dear folks here comes the black lake video a video me and andrew thomas huang did i would like to thank him and james merry so strongly for going through with me the longest video process yet, especially to andrew for his talented elegant patience and for taking my first visual impulses and weaving into them his own magnificent vision : i’m so honoured !! it was a complex yet adventurous process to synchronise with so many departments i would like to thank klaus biesenbach for commissioning it and the haxan cloak, the speaker collaborators, the architect david benjamin and marco perry, who all helped me make the most ideal sound room possible for that song and then thank derek and emma birkett and tamsin, and iris and erna and arca for producing the music with me can i also thank new york for a feisty five months, eight lush gigs ? i guess its time for ‘stonemilker’ and ‘black lake’ to get out there into the world after a three month stint in a museum (after all the effort, ‘stonemilker’ was like black lake’s spontaneous baby sibling, ha ha ha)… we tried to make it in a way it was both at home there and also as a no-nonsense music video (still my fave format) and i hope you don’t mind the wait most curious though about them next things perhaps we don’t even have the best tools yet and technology might be where all the senses can merge even better? !!! here’s to some more VR vulnicura releases soon !!! enthusiasm björk
Public Access T.V.’s new video for “All We Want”
captures the dewy-eyed nostalgia that the song evokes. It’s shot with a
slippery camera that refuses to really focus on anything, but it still
paints an evocative portrait of the band — that seems to have been the
goal. In the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to do a music video like
‘Complete Control’ by The Clash or something where it’s just a video
compiled of all this great unreleased footage sliced together to be a
cohesive thing,” frontman John Eatherly explained in a press release.
“Since starting the band a little over a year ago we have been filming
random things just for fun nearly the entire time. I edited it in the
back of the van during our recent tour. This video shows a glimpse into
the world of Public Access T.V.”
Former Das Racist rapper Heems released his masterfully-titled solo album Eat Pray Thug back in March, which we named Album Of The Week for its ability to tangle the deeply personal with greater societal issues. In-line with this interpretation, the video for “Sometimes”
was a spot-on, winking critique of aspirational whiteness that featured
Hannibal Buress and Eric Andre. But “Damn Girl” doesn’t necessarily
open itself up to a broader appraisal. This is an ambitious song about
heartbreak wrought by a relationship that just won’t quit regardless of
how many times Heems has tried to end it, and the accompanying video
features him moving in spit-fire formations completely alone in a
gallery show he hosted in his home city of New York. He raps, “You’re a
trigger, you’re a killer and I ain’t finna bone/ You’re a trigger,
you’re a killer and you take me out my zone.”
Bully invade an empty amusement park in the video for “Trying,” the great single from the Nashville band’s upcoming debut, Feels Like.
Alicia Bognanno and co. eventually get caught by some bumbling security
guards by the end, but in the meantime they manage to play skeeball and
set up their band in front of a roller coaster. The use of a janky
Gravitron is especially inspired, as the band spinning round and round
changing their force of gravity is just as disorienting as that awesome
chorus.
Sometimes it’s just a joy to see great musicians play, and Leon
Bridges seems like he surrounds himself with the best. There’s enough of
them in his video for new single “Smooth Sailin’”
that it’s a pleasure to watch. And, of course, Bridges himself is a
preternaturally talented young performer and takes his rightful place at
the center of it all, dressed in a dapper suit while he dances along to
the beat. Bridges’ brand of traditional soul music could have beeen
made in a past era, but crisp and charming videos like this one make me
glad that his time is now.
Sweden’s Ghost announced their forthcoming album, Meliora, via a cryptic late-night VH1 Classic commercial back in May, and two days later they dropped the record’s first single. “Cirice”
is a clamorous, performative track, and the new video is an adept
accompaniment. A misfit little girl attends a talent show that quickly
evolves into an apocalyptic reckoning of sorts when Ghost bewitches her
with their performance. Roboshobo, the man most recently responsible for Mastodon’s excellent “High Road” video and the Killers’ “Shot At Night,” as well as dozens of of other impressive works, directs.
UK producer Hudson Mohawke is this close to releasing Lantern, his first solo LP in six years (so basically forever). We’ve already heard a bunch of tracks from the star-studded new album,
and tonight, HudMo is giving us one more taste. “Warriors” is a huge,
celebratory fuck-the-haters anthem featuring Ruckazoid and Devaeux, and
the video (directed by Stef & Ivo)
is a cool twist on the lyric video format, in which phrases from the
song are projected and painted onto the bodies of dancers. Watch it
below.
Young Thug snagged Album Of The Week honors a couple of months ago on the strength of his deeply engaging album (or mixtape, or whatever) Barter 6. Now, he’s just shared a new video for highlight “Halftime.” Thug co-directs alongside frequent collaborator Be El Be,
and there’s not really a whole lot to the clip, but Thug’s weirdo
charisma keeps it eminently watchable. Also, this is the song where he
boasts “Every time I dress myself, it go motherfuckin’ viral,” and his
sartorial choices here do not disappoint.
Tomorrow, Montreal shoegazers No Joy will drop their new album More Faithful upon the world. First single “Everything New”
is a glimmering rush of guitars, and now the multidisciplinary artist
Jason Harvey has directed a deeply strange video for it. The clip tells
the story of a pile of magical garbage that comes to life after a No Joy
show. There’s also a whole lot of stuff about how we look at our phones
too much.
Lorely Rodriguez is the force behind Empress Of, a Brooklyn
electro-pop act that’s been steadily gaining force for several years
now. Her debut EP Systems
came out back in 2013, and she’s currently gearing up to finally put
out an album. “Water Water” is one of her newer tracks, and she penned
the song while in Valle de Bravo, Mexico on a writing retreat. It was
originally titled “Agua, Agua” and has been translated to English — that translation now has a video that fittingly premiered today at Noisey Mexico.
Rodriguez co-directed the video with Zaiba Jabbar, and stars in it as a
fluid version of herself, multiplying and blurring via cool editing
effects. In the song she addresses everything from getting too high to
the fact that water is a privilege akin to going to college, a powerful
commentary on a simple thing that Americans often take for granted.
Watch it below, where you can also hear the Spanish version of the song.
Next month, Geoff Barrow’s side project Beak> will release a new
split EP — one side will feature new Beak> songs, while the other
will have tracks from Kaeb, the band’s “alter-ego.” They’ve just shared
“When We Fall,” the quiet and meditative first track from the release,
and it’s accompanied by a video co-directed by Ex Machina/28 Days Later director Alex Garland and Ex Machina
director of photography Rob Hardy. (Barrow did the score for that film
along with Ben Salisbury.) It also stars Sonoya Mizuno, who also starred
in Ex Machina. A lot of connections to that film!
Cayucas blend the pastoral and the beach with a deft hand, so it
seems entirely appropriate that the video for their new track “Moony
Eyed Walrus” would see the three band members lugging a surfboard
through the woods. Some quick cuts highlight their pointedly dramatic
looks at the camera, while everything slows down as their staring up at
an immense waterfall.
FFS — the new supergroup made up of members of Franz Ferdinand and
Sparks — have shared a video for “Piss Off,” a song from their
self-titled debut that comes out tomorrow. It features the band members
as animated creepy little ninja men with their real-life heads placed on
top of small bodies. They dance on top of buildings, shoot lasers out
of their hands, make a cheerleading-style triangle formation. It’s
weird!
