Miami Horror - “Cellophane (So Cruel)” (Official Video)

Miami Horror’s new video for “Cellophane (So Cruel)” makes your dream of being in two places at once a reality. A camera pans around a room with white floors and white walls, showing people doing simple tasks alongside an extended hand or foot. The camera then follows the extended hand or foot to the next person, and repeat. Basically, every person in the video has a hand or a foot in some other scene. It sounds complicated, and it is. See the still above for reference. Perhaps the inspiration for the video, directed by Lachlan Dickie, came from this line in the song: “You say you gotta take off / Have you got somewhere better to be?” The poppy Australian synth quartet are no strangers to obscure videos, as we learned back in April with their crime drama video for “Love Like Mine.” Both songs are found on the band’s sophomore release, All Possible Futures.

Tkay Maidza - “M.O.B.” (Official Video)

Sometimes the universe manages to self-correct itself with the precision of a pop song. After the reign (and subsequent fall) of clueless Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, a new voice has emerged from that same southern island. That voice belongs to Tkay Maidza, a Zimbabwe-born, Australian-raised rapper, singer, and producer who released her breakout project Switch Tape at the end of last year.
Tkay Maidza (pronounced: Tee-kay My-zda) is short for Takudzwa Victoria Rosa Maidza, the kind of name that practically demands its recipient create something huge and wonderful, like the glistening postmodern rap compositions she makes. On Switch Tape Maidza samples Yeezus, collaborates with electronic experimentalists like SBTRKT and Bok Bok, and handles sharp hooks with the same fluidity as her precisely rapped verses. A sense of free-floating exuberance emerges from even the darkest corners of her music; this is a woman who makes rapping sound effortless while twisting difficult rhythms and constantly evolving production.

After she uploaded Switch Tape to SoundCloud as one 33-minute mix, Maizda cut “M.O.B.” (Money Over Bitches, duh) out of that stream and used it as a single to point back toward the whole tape.

Today we’re premiering the song’s animated video, a call-back to the cartoon Tkay in her “Switch Lanes” video. Maidza is a regal, fierce, and clever musician gunning straight for the top. Based off this song alone, it won’t be long until she get there.

Foals - “Mountain At My Gates” (Official Video 360º) (GoPro Spherical)

It seems a little counterintuitive to get esteemed music video director Nabil to shoot one entirely on a crappy little GoPro camera, but that’s what the video for Foals’ “Mountain At My Gates” asks of him. Nabil and the band have collaborated before on videos for “Bad Habit” and “Late Night,” so it makes sense that he’d say yes. The gimmick here is that it was all shot on one of GoPro’s “spherical” cameras, which allow for an interactive video where you can scroll around 360-degrees Google Maps-style and see Yannis Philippakis and company playing in an alleyway with some mountains as their backdrop. To view the interactive video, you’ll have to be using Google Chrome or the Youtube app on mobile.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “Ur Life One Night” (Official Video)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s excellent, funky third album Multi-Love came out earlier this year, and today the band have shared a video for “Ur Life One Night.” UMO frontman Ruban Nielson told Rolling Stone that he was specifically interested in connecting with an Indian director for the project:

I was really obsessed with working with a director in India because it seemed crazy that they have the biggest film industry in the world and yet I’d never made a video there. I feel really privileged to have connected with [director] Manoj [Leonel Jahson] and to have this video.

Jahson also discussed his excitement about the video, which uses elements of Indian magical-realism:

When we first spoke with UMO, the idea of creating something abstract yet fun, for their single ‘Ur Life One Night’ sounded very exciting. I am deeply inspired by the quirky Indian magical-realism from our mythology and wanted to create something rooted, but still visually appealing. The music lent a dream-like quality and the lyric pushed us to the motif of the Goddess being pursued, yet always being out of reach. The visual language naturally led to borrowing heavily from Traditional Asian Art including miniature paintings from the Mughal period to create multiple dreams-capes and ended up being a sexually charged riot with a fair dose of humor and symbolism.

Watch Liam Gallagher Play A New Song In An Irish Pub

Liam Gallagher debuted a new song in County Mayo, Ireland this past weekend. The former frontman of Oasis (and Beady Eye!) joined local musicians at J.J. Finan’s pub and played a short acoustic set. The new song is still unnamed, but as NME points out, it includes a possible reference to his brother Noel’s recent album Chasing Yesterday: “When I wake up and I hear you say/ There’s no love worth chasing yesterday.”

The Darkness - “Last Of Our Kind” (Official Video)

Glam-rock revivalists the Darkness released their fourth album, Last Of Our Kind, a few months back, and now they’ve shared a video for the title track. The band brought a whole cast of characters with them, who dance along and vamp it up against a white backdrop. The only problem I can see is that the drummer is wearing a Native American headdress which, ugh, but everyone else seems to be having fun.

Oddisee - “Belong To The World” (Official Video)

Back in May, underground Washington, D.C. rapper/producer Oddisee released his excellent (and underrated) new LP The Good Fight, a warm, kinetic swirl of jazz, soul, and hip-hop. Now we’re getting a video for early track “Belong To The World,” a fiercely individualistic outsider anthem about finding a sense of belonging within that otherness. Director Zachary Kashkett follows that theme, punctuating gorgeous, isolated shots of Oddisee with small moments of human and musical connection.

Silicon - “Burning Sugar” (Official Video)

Silicon is the self-described “pop-aspersion” project of Hawaiian-New Zealander Kody Nielson, the brother of Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson. The video for “Burning Sugar” from Silicon’s upcoming Personal Computer caters to the internet’s revitalized idea of retro-futuristic aestheticism. When Nielson sings of sugar burning, we see gold-painted hands holding a spoonful of sugar being burned by a pale pink lighter in front of a eggshell blue background. When he sings of candles burning, we see a gold skull candle burning on a plain pastel pink backdrop. The colors and the lax vibe are all so hip, it’s no wonder Nielson is claiming his own genre.

Kate Boy - “Midnight Sun” (Official Video)

Stockholm synthpop trio Kate Boy shared “Midnight Sun” a couple weeks ago in conjunction with the news of their long-awaited debut album. ONE won’t be out until November, but in the meantime they’ve released a video for the song. It flashes between stark, black and white footage of a girl in sweats (that recalls 2013’s “The Way We Are” video) and shots of her glittered and festooned in elaborate costume. Kate Boy directed and produced the whole thing themselves.

Nate Heller - “Dreamsong” (Feat. Amber Coffman)

The forthcoming movie The Diary Of A Teenage Girl is a coming-of-age period piece set in 1976, and it tells the story of a high school girl who falls in lust with her mother’s boyfriend. Nate Heller, brother of director Marielle Heller, contributed a couple of songs to the soundtrack, and one of those is “Dreamsong,” which features Dirty Projectors singer Amber Coffman and which Consequence Of Sound posted today. After years of yearing Coffman sing tricky, intricate Dave Longstreth songs, it’s fun to hear her doing a straight ahead, vaguely twee folk song. 

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Puscifer - “Grand Canyon” (Official Video)

Puscifer, the project of Tool/A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan, is releasing its first album in four years. “Grand Canyon,” the first release off of Money Shot, is a busy soundscape sculpted by Keenan featuring UK’s Carina Round. The track is filled with echoing voice distortion and an almost Middle Eastern influence. “It’s extremely satisfying to witness simple conversations and ideas transform into completed sonic landscapes,”Keenan said of the new album to Rolling Stone.

The “Grand Canyon” video was directed by Keenan, Puscifer, and Ghost Atomic and shot by Gavin Fisher and Odin Wadleigh. It glides through breathtaking visuals of the Grand Canyon, truly “witnessing the majesty” of nature. The shots take place at all hours: coursing through the canyon during sunset, at night with shooting stars, and with the natural red hues during the day, ending in a very confrontational manner with lucha libre–masked characters from Puscifer’s “Toma” video aiming a slingshot at the camera.

The Weeknd - “Can’t Feel My Face” (Official Video)

“Can’t Feel My Face” is the Weeknd’s biggest hit ever, narrowly missing #1 for two straight weeks and enjoying the Tom Cruise treatment on Fallon last night. Abel Tesfaye first performed the song at the Apple Music launch event last month, and today he’s used Apple’s Connect service to debut the video. It begins as a fairly straightforward performance clip, with Tesfaye strutting his stuff on a nightclub stage in front of a bright blue curtain. Eventually, he catches fire, and an audience-wide dance party erupts along with the flames. It gives new meaning to the word “lit.”

Keith Richards - “Trouble” (Official Video)

Exclusive video premiere of “Trouble” from Keith Richards (@officialKeef) is now on #Connect! http://t.co/A2hdB371cU pic.twitter.com/397EIQ0n8h

— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) julio 27, 2015

Earlier this month, Keith Richards announced his upcoming fall release Crosseyed Heart, his first solo album in over 20 years, and revealed its debut single “Trouble.” Now the bluesy tune has an accompanying video with a lively up-close performance that premiered on Apple Music Connect. The video was directed by Academy Award-winning Morgan Neville, known for his documentary 20 Feet From Stardom, and was shot in New York City’s Germano Studios, where most of the album was recorded. “Trouble” was written and produced by Richards and Steve Jordan, featuring Keith on guitars, bass, and vocals, Jordan on drums, percussion, and backup vocals, and Waddy Wachtel on electric guitar. Richards weighed in on the record, saying:

I had a ball making this new record and working with Steve Jordan and Waddy Wachtel again. There’s nothing like walking into a studio and having absolutely no idea what you’re going to come out with on the other end. If you’re looking for “Trouble,” you’ve come to the right place.

LIZ - “When I Rule The World” (Official Video)

SOPHIE produced LIZ’s frantic, blippy new pop song “When I Rule The World,” and it’s a fascinating test case for the question of whether PC Music’s whole conceptual jackhammer future-pop aesthetic will work as actual pop music. The song debuted in a Samsung ad, and now it’s got a flashy video from veteran pop-video director Justin Francis. The video overdoses on little-princess imagery — stuffed animals, tiaras, an adorable puppy, a pair of dancing girls. It’s as busy as any K-pop video. And if Ariana Grande’s whole infant-chic thing creeps you out, you should probably go ahead and skip this one.

BEAK> - “The Broken Window” (Official Video)

Geoff Barrow’s improvisational Krautrock trio BEAK> released the follow-up to 2012’s >>, a split EP with their alter-ego band KAEB, today. We’ve already seen eerie videos for two of the songs, “There’s No One” and “The Meader,” and now the band’s released a new one for “The Broken Window.” Directed by Tia Salisbury, this video chronicles a train passenger’s mental break down through a distorted lens.

Mas Ysa - "Margarita" (Official Music Video)

Mas Ysa has shared a video for “Margarita,” a track off his new record and Album Of The Week honoree Seraph. It was filmed on location in scenic Hawaii, and director Kris Moyes takes advantage of the surroundings with some breathtaking wide shots of the landscape. The beauty is undercut by the macabre, however, as we follow a body wrapped in plastic travel through a river and out to sea. Very Twin Peaks, only it doesn’t look so cold and bleak out there in the Pacific. Mas Ysa mastermind Thomas Arsenault wears all white and treks through the burnt-out crags of the island before landing in front of the ocean. Watch it via Pitchfork .

Kevin Gates - “Kno One” (Official Video)

Baton Rouge rapper Kevin Gates may get a lot of attention for his discussions on unusual sexual endeavors, but behind his wild Instagram presence he’s also deemed one of the best rappers working today. This past spring he released his EP-length mixtape Murder For Hire, with leading track “Khaza“, and just this month put out a catchy standalone song called “Kno One.” Now Gates shares its official video where he parties at a barbecue and a billiards spot, as he sings the melodic hook to a neon-green dressed woman — of course with his signature pitbull in tow.

Communions - “Forget It’s A Dream” (Official Video)

Copenhagen punk four-piece Communions impressed us with their debut self-titled EP a few months ago, and they’re back with a video for the release’s sprawling opening track, “Forget It’s A Dream,” to remind everyone that they exist. It starts off with some grainy archival black-and-white footage of a wrestling match, but quickly switches gears to the stark monochromatic stylings of director Nikolaj Møller. “The video is about ​the special time and years around being a teenager​ growing up and becoming an adult. Around the innocent years with ​the ​​newly ​discove​red sexual attraction​ and exploration,” Møller explains.

Watch Tom Cruise Lip Sync The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” On Fallon

If you’ve ever seen Rock Of Ages, you’ve seen the terrifying intensity that Tom Cruise brings when he’s pretending to sing songs onscreen. And if you’ve seen that incredible clip of Cruise doing the Yung Joc motorcycle dance on 106 & Park, you’ve seen the absolutely unashamed awkwardness he brings when he’s engaging with current popular music in any way. Both extremes were on full display last night on The Tonight Show, when Cruise lip synced the Weeknd’s monster hit “Can’t Feel My Face,” showing considerably more emotion and movement than Abel Tesfaye ever displays during his own shows. This was part of a lip sync battle with Jimmy Fallon, and it also involved Fallon’s Mick Jagger impression, a one-man “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” duet, and a Righteous Brothers Top Gun callback.

Day Wave - “Drag” (Official Video)

Jackson Phillips, the man behind Day Wave, is experiencing a lot of “firsts” this summer. His first EP, Headcase, came out earlier this month, and now he’s got his first music video, which premiered today via Apple Music. His song “Drag” plays over footage of Phillips guiding the camera around his Bay Area home — mountains, train tracks, etc. The whole video, directed by Jack Moser, looks like it was shot with a camcorder from the ’90s, but it works with Phillips’ aesthetic and the nostalgia found in his tunes.

Kehlani - “The Way” (Feat. Chance The Rapper) Video

If you’ve listened to Surf, then you know that Chance The Rapper is an ideal collaborator; he only chooses the best of the best up-and-comers to work with and rarely overshadows them. Such is the case with “The Way,” a single off of the rising Oakland-based R&B singer Kehlani’s latest mixtape You Should Be Here. All of Kehlani’s work is subtly sensual, and all of her words sound like they come from someplace deep within her heart, always insightful but never forced. Chance is like that too, though he usually boasts a different tone, which makes this song a gorgeous example of two artists coalescing seamlessly to make a really lovely piece of music. Watch the Austin Vesely-directed video.

Wet - “You’re The Best” (Official Video)

The transcendent “Deadwater” and its video had us rhapsodizing about Wet’s upcoming Don’t You. The album’s second single will not be not new to longtime Wet fans, but it’s just as good. The Massachusetts trio re-recorded 2013 EP track “You’re The Best,” and gave it a new video to replace the original clip. The emotive-android harmonies and lightweight groove of the first recording remain intact, but this latest video is set at a roller rink, as Kelly Zutrau explains to Billboard:

We’ve been skating a lot in our town because there’s not too much to do at night. One night we were just at the mall skating and I took a video of Joe doing a trick and we realized it would make the perfect video for “You’re The Best.”

Meek Mill - “All Eyes On You” (Feat. Nicki Minaj & Chris Brown) Video

Meek Mill’s second studio album Dreams Worth More Than Money has been a hell of a comeback so far. After getting out of jail, sparking up a romance with hip-hop’s reigning queen Nicki Minaj, and going straight for Drake’s jugular, Mill seems to be on a mission to assert his dominance. The video for his collaboration with Minaj is slightly different though, toning things down a bit for a romantic, soulful tone. Minaj has been teasing the shoot on Instagram for a few weeks now, and today the video has premiered via MTV. Chris Brown is the unwelcome third wheel who sings the hook on the video, which is mostly shot in a gorgeous mansion. Also, Minaj’s denim bikini might just start a new fad.

Florence + The Machine - “Queen Of Peace” / “Long And Lost” (Official Video)

We’ve already gotten four memorable videos for songs from Florence + The Machine’s latest album, How Big How Blue How Beautiful, but Florence Welch doesn’t seem content to stop there. She’s teamed up yet again with Vincent Haycock — who also directed the rest of the videos for the record — for a ten-minute short film featuring the album tracks “Queen Of Peace” and “Long & Lost.” It was shot on the Scotland coastline, and Welch acts as a mediator for a violent colony who seem to be holding her back at every turn.

Kanye West - “All Day / I Feel Like That” Video (Dir. Steve McQueen)

As previously reported, yesterday Kanye West’s Steve McQueen-directed “All Day / I Feel Like That” video began a six-day screening at Los Angeles County Museum Of Art. Although phones were confiscated at the event, it looks like somebody managed to get their device inside, because Fake Shore Drive just shared a full nine-minute bootleg recorded at the museum. The highlight here is obviously hearing a previously unreleased track, “I Feel Like That,” which begins at about 5:20 in the video below. The presumed SWISH song is a noisy, bass- and percussion-heavy ballad with high-pitched singing and spoken-word from Kanye. The bootleg format might not be what Kanye had in mind — though he had to expect somebody would sneak footage out, so maybe this was what Kanye had in mind — but either way, experiencing it in this format reminds me of the “New Slaves” projections, which is an awesome sensation to recall. The original video has now been removed from YouTube, but you can still see it over on DDotOmen. Enjoy!
Here’s the description on the YouTube video, which might be from the museum:

Shot by artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, the video for Kanye West’s songs “All Day/I Feel Like That” plays upon the relationship between the camera and the subject. As in a meeting between the bull and the matador, it remains unclear who chases whom within the arena. The roles of pursuer and pursued are at times inverted. Shot in a single 9-minute take with natural lighting and minimal context, McQueen accentuates the immediacy and intensity of the performer up close. Every movement of West is seen; every breath felt. It becomes apparent how the song itself fuels West’s performance, from the bravado in “All Day,” to the vulnerability of “I Feel Like That.”

Janet Jackson - "No Sleeep" Feat. J. Cole (Music Video)

When J. Cole showed up to throw awkward come-ons all over a remix of Janet Jackson’s sublime comeback single “No Sleeep,” it was like, “It’s OK. It’s just a remix. It doesn’t really count.” Well, that was fun while it lasted. The Cole version is apparently now the official one, since he’s now showed up in the track’s video. Well, whatever. Still a good song. The clip shows Jackson and Cole woodenly flirting in a fancy, sexily-lit mansion, and it’s got a few light psychedelic effects.

Galantis - “Peanut Butter Jelly” (Official Video)

The members of Swedish dance-pop duo Galantis are partially responsible for two of the most quotable pop songs in recent memory — Britney Spears’ “Toxic” and Icona Pop’s “I Love It” — and that’s a fact not easily ignored when you listen to their recent single “Peanut Butter Jelly.” The song floats atop a throwback disco-inspired beat, and all lyrics falling to the wayside as its pulse ignites and propels itself to the forefront. It’s included on Galantis’ recent LP, Pharmacy, which dropped back in June. The accompanying “Peanut Butter Jelly” video centers on an average evening at the grocery store that evolves into a transcendent dance party.

Weezer - “Go Away” (Feat. Bethany Cosentino) Video

Yesterday we saw a preview of Weezer’s video for Everything Will Be Alright In The End single “Go Away.” Today, the full visuals for the Bethany Cosentino collab are revealed. Directors Brendan Walter and Greg Yagolnitzer cast Rivers Cuomo as a loser boyfriend trying to win back the affection of his ex, played by Cosentino. His plan involves trying on a bunch of ridiculous costumes and texting pictures of himself to some kind of Tinder-esque dating app. When that plan doesn’t work, he stoops to subterfuge.

Gold Class - “Life As A Gun” (Official Video)

Knife-throwing is no casual sport. You either have great aim or you wound someone. Australian newcomers Gold Class come off as an aggressive post-punk version of the Smiths thanks to singer Adam Curley’s deep, lingering vocals. There’s an innate darkness about their “Life As A Gun” video. It focuses on an intense trust game paired with deadly knife play. A woman throws knives at a suspended Curley while one or the other is blindfolded. The band described director Geoffrey O’Connor as having a “penchant for marrying elegance, tension and a touch of dark humour.” Influenced by film noir, the video plays off the song’s lyrical sentiment, the desire to both protect and harm, the moment when trust is placed in the knife-wielding hands of another.” Watch the serious knife play.

Disclosure - “Omen” (Feat. Sam Smith) Video

The first time Disclosure and Sam Smith teamed up, it was for “Latch,” the first single from Disclosure’s debut album Settle. That was obviously a huge song, a radio hit in America years after its UK release, and it played a tremendous role in making both Disclosure and Smith famous. So it’s a big deal when these guys get together, and now they’re together again. Smith sings on “Omen,” the latest single from Disclosure’s forthcoming sophomore album Caracal, and he also co-wrote it with Disclosure and frequent collaborator Jimmy Napes. It’s a squelchy, streamlined, disco-flavored house-pop track, and it could well become inescapable in the months ahead. Ryan Hope directed the video, and it continues the story started in the video for previous Disclosure single “Holding On.” Like that other video, the new one takes place in a dystopic near-future, this time at an outlawed underground dance party. Hope filmed the video in Mexico City, and it features Smith looking very leonine and George Michael-esque.

Samantha Crain - “Killer” (Official Video)

Samantha Crain’s dusty, unmediated voice breathes new life into threadbare folk arrangements, and her song “Killer” off of this year’s Under Branch & Thorn & Tree is nothing if not a masterful example of what it sounds like to be forward-thinking, genre-bending songwriter in this day and age. Despite its title, this is a lively song overburdened with a darker message, and its video illustrates that dichotomy perfectly. A young boy parades through a near-abandoned town playing the role of a local cop. He scours roadside sewers for abandoned toys and dolls and ends up perusing a cemetery. Diffuser reports that the track is a protest song that grapples with police brutality and the disturbingly common, unjustifiable deaths of young black men at the hands of cops. Crain said the following about the song and video:

Every day we are told that progress is being made toward equality and fairness but it seems there are still widening gaps between classes, sexes, races and creeds… This song is a call for awareness.

Watch the Weston Getto Allen- and Dorian Electra-directed clip.

Jason Isbell - “Something More Than Free” (Official Video)

Jason Isbell’s Something More Than Free is one of the best albums of this year, and today he’s released a video for the working-class hat-tip title track. When I interviewed Isbell, he talked about how being around people that are actually struggling with day-to-day life is part of what helps keep him grounded. This video is basically a visual representation of that idea, and it chronicles the tiny tasks and daily routines that tie us to our sanity. It’s easy to resent going to work and doing your job, but “Something More Than Free” is a song breaks down how important it is that we have something to fill our time, that we have something to work toward. “I don’t think on why I’m here or where it hurts / I’m just lucky to have the work,” goes a line from the chorus that multiple characters in the video end up singing. It’s a flip on the idea that work is something to be avoided, instead cultivating thankfulness through community, family, and physical labor.

“I think as you get older, if you mature and grow in the right way, then eventually you realize it’s not really freedom that you’re fighting for,” Isbell said. “It’s what that freedom can get you. It’s freedom combined with the ability to make good decisions and align your priorities correctly. The ability to make those decisions is a privilege that not everybody has.” Nothing sums that sentiment up better than this video by director James Weems.

Belle & Sebastian - “Perfect Couples” (Official Video)

Belle & Sebastian have shared a video for an extended version of “Perfect Couples,” a track from their latest album, Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance. There’s no real plot to speak of here — it’s more of a visualization featuring a neighborhood party that gradually gets more intricate and chaotic as more people join in. It crescendos with a group dance before being whittled down to its smaller components once again. The passive form of the video should be expected, since it was originally put together by production company The Forest Of Black to accompany the song on the band’s most recent tour. Check out the video, which clocks in at almost nine minutes.

Major Lazer - “Powerful” (Feat. Ellie Goulding & Tarrus Riley) Video

Major Lazer’s summer anthem “Lean On” has just about completed its pop-music takeover, and now another track from Diplo’s crew seems likely to join it. “Powerful,” another track from the group’s Peace Is The Mission Album, pairs Ellie Goulding with reggae star Tarrus Riley, and now it’s got its own video. In director James Slater’s new clip, Goulding and Riley play customers in a diner who are just starting to understand their own telekinetic abilities. It looks like something from season one of Heroes.

Holychild - “U Make Me Sick” (Official Video)

Holychild’s glossy brand of self-described brat pop feels tailor-made for music videos, so it’s not a surprise that all of the visuals for their songs so far have been strong. Their latest is for The Shape Of Brat Pop To Come closing track “U Make Me Sick,” and it continues the trend as Liz Nistico and Louie Diller play dress-up and act in love. 

“[The song’s about] the concept of a fucked up love, and the really high highs and really low lows that exist within that. I wanted to capture that with the music video, so when you see us at some points it’s kind of void of emotion, at other points goofy and fun, and then super loving when we’re in the car, as if nothing else matters,” Nistico explained to V Magazine. “When it’s good, it’s so good and it’s always been good. When it’s bad, it’s so bad and it’s always been bad. I wanted to show those extremes.”

Cold Specks – “A Season Of Doubt” Video

Last year Cold Specks (aka Al Spx) put out another phenomenal doom-soul record called Neuroplasticity. Spx’s voice is a scratchy, brilliant thing that fits right alongside soul legends, but if

you’re wondering how the doom element factors into things, consider that she worked with Michael Gira of Swans on several of the tracks. Today she’s shared a new video for the album closer “A Season Of Doubt,” and given the current focus on police violence and discriminatory deaths, it seems like a fitting title for the present. In the stark, stunning video directed by Seth Pimlott, the outline of Spx’s face is juxtaposed over footage of violence, protestors, and chaos. Spx also wrote an extensive statement about how the video is a direct reflection on Ferguson and the deaths of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Read that below and watch the video — it’s essential viewing.

Full statement:

We move like wolves in the bleak night
We dance like ghosts deprived of flight
The body will come to understand a season of doubt

I was in America when the Ferguson grand jury decision was announced. I was there again when it was announced the police officer who placed Eric Garner into a fatal chokehold would not be indicted. I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I just kept thinking of my baby brother. My brother is 12 years old. The same age as Tamir Rice, the child who was shot and killed as he carried his toy gun. It could’ve been him.

I shouldn’t have to remember the first time I was called a nigger as vividly as my first kiss. I shouldn’t have to experience and witness the burden of being black in 2015. It shouldn’t have to be this painful.

The video for ‘A Season of Doubt’ was made with these feelings in mind.

Here We Go Magic - "Falling" (Official Video)

Brooklyn future-pop prog-rockers Here We Go Magic are releasing their first new album since 2012’s Nigel Goodrich-produced A Different Ship. This one, their fourth, comes sans a big name producer and was entirely mixed and recorded by the band themselves, hence the title: Be Small. Still, influences of other singular musicians are at work here; the band cites Brian Eno, John Cale’s Wrong Way Up, and Robert Wyatt’s Shleep as inspirations for the new record. Today they’ve shared the first single “Falling” along with the Sam Kuhn-directed video. It’s a flickering, bright song about the joy of falling in love, and it looks like it was shot in New York’s own Rockaways near the beach. The giddiness drops off abruptly at the end, spilling into a quiet and still instrumental section.

Jenny Hval - “Sabbath” (Official Video)

“Sabbath” is one of the more disorienting cuts on Jenny Hval’s Apocalypse, girl, an album designed to disorient. The song itself is about a young girl’s sexual awakening, but the new video for the track chooses to emulate the feelings of bewilderment, wonder, and excitement that go along with that very pivotal time instead of opting for a more straight-forward interpretation, as she did in the video for “The Battle Is Over.” The clip was shot on a phone during their European tour, and it’s impressive how off-kilter it feels for how small everything feels. Goes to show what some good editing and slo-mo effects can do. Hval is joined by her stage performers Zia and Annie — who she talked about at length in an interview with NPR — as they mimic each other’s movements along the European countryside and in hotel rooms. The wigs that Hval has been wearing on her most recent tour also feature prominently as she shapeshifts to a new appearance in every scene.

Gem Club - “Braids” (Official Video)

Massachusetts chamber-pop trio Gem Club released their album In Roses a year and a half ago, but they’re just now getting around to dropping a video for their hushed, lovely single “Braid.” The clip, from director Christian Palmer, is a surreal romantic vision that tells the story of a boy with a reptilian monster mask sewn onto his face and a girl who finds a toy piano inside her dead cat. It’s got a lot of blood, and it doesn’t make the tiniest bit of sense. I like it. Noisey posted the video, and you can watch.

Watch Ryan Adams Cover Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These”

I never thought I’d say this, but I’d be interested in hearing a Ryan Adams album entirely comprising live acoustic Foo Fighters covers. The basis for this assertion is Adams’ rendition of “Times Like These” — a song he’s been covering for years — performed at Sydney Opera House, recorded by YouTube user TheAussiemusicman, and posted by CoS. In tribute to the recently injured Dave Grohl, Adams transforms the late-period Foos hit from a passable slice of sentimental alt-rock sludge into a true, ahem, heartbreaker. Watch below and tell us how you like it.

EZTV - “Dust In The Sky” (Official Video)

There are traces of so many wonderful bands in EZTV’s DNA: Real Estate’s languid bliss-out guitar music, Girls’ back-to-basics pop songcraft, the Nerves’ punchy New Wave, the Byrds’ twangy jangle. All those factors and more are audible in “Dust In The Sky,” one of many highlights on the Brooklyn combo’s debut album Calling Out. Director Ian Perlman’s “Dust In The Sky” video takes cues from the song’s beautiful simplicity; watch below, and check out “Soft Tension” for further EZTV goodness.

Pharrell - “Freedom” (Official Video)

Pharrell’s limp new single “Freedom” began its life as the first ever Apple Music exclusive, and now the pop star has shared a video for the rest of the world to see. It positions Pharrell as the bringer of this freedom, centering him among a slave uprising, a sweatshop, and in a room filled with models. The clip was directed by Paul Hunter, who last worked with Pharrell on his 2005 video for “Can I Have It Like That.”

Despot - “House Of Bricks” (Official Video)

The great New York underground rapper Despot has been destroying other people’s songs for years, but he’s barely released anything under his own name. That could change soon, though. Despot’s “House Of Bricks” single is getting some serious notice, and his long-developing album We’re All Excited may actually come out before we’re all dead. Ratatat’s Evan Mast, who produced the song, also directed its excellent new video, which FADER just posted. Mast filmed the video at Despot’s childhood apartment, and it stars the man’s entire family, as well as a falcon and an iguana. His mom gets to roll a joint on camera. Watch it below, and understand that you would definitely watch an indie film about this clan.

HeCTA - “The Concept” (Official Video)

Lambchop have been making orchestral, soul-flavored Americana for decades, so it’s a bit of a surprise that three band members, including frontman Kurt Wagner, have now formed a disco-house side project called HeCTA. But it’s happening, and we’ve already posted the shockingly strong first single “Till Someone Gets Hurt.” “The Concept” is another track from the group’s forthcoming album The Diet. It samples an old Buddy Hackett comedy 78 that Wagner bought when he was a kid, and its new video uses surreal old-timey animation to tell the story about a man who goes through romantic frustrations that turn him into a monster. Chris Shepherd directs.

Prince - “Baltimore” (Official Video)

Back in May, Prince paid tribute to the city of Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police. He performed at the Rally 4 Peace concert and debuted “Baltimore” the day before the show. He’s just shared a video for the track, which chronicles peaceful protests and vigils that took place in wake of riots and the subsequent lockdown of the city.

Compass - “Uy Uy Uy” (Feat. Carlos Ann & Kool A.D.) Video

This video is absolutely hilarious: Two old guys dressed to the nines in suits and tails dancing in what looks like a museum of baroque art. The men are probably in their late 70s and are performing as if they were Carlos Ann and Kool A.D. in the company of two young attractive females. The four of them dance, meditate, and toss around colored sand. It’s strange and amusing. Compass, the pairing of producers Mexican Institute Of Sound and Toy Selectah, brought the featured duo together, for which we can all be grateful. Classic Kool A.D. verse in there, too. Watch the party unfold.

Matthew E. White - “Vision (No Skin Version)” Video

watch the video for “Vision” presented by Nowness and created by Clara Aranovich. It chronicles the lives of several different characters who are blind and find community together.

S - “Like Gangbusters!” (Official Video)

S is the indie-rock solo project of Seattle’s Jenn Ghetto. We premiered the former Carissa’s Wierd vocalist’s gorgeous heartbreak- and pop-driven album Cool Choices last year, and she’s already shared videos for LP tracks “Losers,” “Vampires,” and “Tell Me“. Now she follows up with the debut of her tabloid parody video for “Like Gangbusters!” directed by Stacy Peck. It features home-video styled footage, as Ghetto becomes a resilient target of paparazzi-like scenesters who follow her every move. She gets criticized with faux headlines for carrying out mundane activities, like waiting for the bus and washing clothes at a laundromat (you know, things only washed-up rock stars do!). But haters gonna hate, and Ghetto could care less, smiling and chiming in with lyrics like “You will not take me down.” She even breaks out in an adorable group-dance in the coffee shop where she works.

Uniform - “Indifference” (Official Video)

Uniform is a noise band consisting of Brooklyn neighbors Ben Greenberg (The Men, Hubble, Pygmy Shrews) and Michael Berdan (York Factory Complaint, Drunkdriver, Believer/Law). As Noisey attests, the duo’s video for “Indifference” seems anything but indifferent. Directed by Micki Pellerano and shot by Jacqueline Castel, it delivers social and political commentary in the form of still black and white images with clips of Uniform performing. The video views like a photomontage beginning with an ideal categorization of love, mother, father, me, god, country, enemy, and happiness. Then as the song progresses, the categories begin to mix, shedding light on reality. The images of country show an electric chair, the image of mother moves to the enemy category, and so on.

Kurt Vile - “Pretty Pimpin” (Official Video)

Vile has shared the official video for “Pretty Pimpin,” too. It’s directed by Daniel Henry, and it finds Vile pensively stalking and rocking in various urban locales.

Thundercat - “Them Changes” (Official Video)

Thundercat has shared a video for “Them Changes,” the squelching, lovesick track from his recently released mini-album The Beyond/Where The Giants Roam. It uses samurai sword fights as a form of escapism for a man who feels trapped in his own life. “Thundercat’s take on heartbreak is so atypical that I figured the video for the song should be anything but a classic relationship-gone-wrong story,” video director Carlos Lopez Estrada said in a statement. “Stories like athletes’ careers ending after injuries or artists losing their site/hearing/ability to perform; these concepts are truly heartbreaking. I also know that Thundercat has a thing for samurais — so I saw an opportunity to make everyone happy here. Or everyone sad, I guess.”

Aaron Taos - “ILL” (Official Video)

Time seems to move slowly post-breakup. You sort of just want to vegetate and think about everything that has happened. In his first video, Brooklyn-based Aaron Taos does exactly that. Lying on the floor on a sheepskin rug with a vinyl of his track “ILL” playing, Taos contemplates life after the end of a romance. The video, directed by the Tanaka Bros., takes a revolving aerial view. We watch as friends stop by and hang out, drink, smoke, as Taos receives Chinese takeout and as a party rings in the New Year all while Taos remains sprawled out on the floor in his own world. He wakes from his immobile state only after movers have packed away all his belongings. Taos’ rough vocals and crisp guitar are a comfort in this track.

Dâm-Funk - “We Continue” (Official Video)

Dâm-Funk will release Invite The Light, his first new album in six years, this fall — so far, we’ve only heard “We Continue” off the new record, and now that track has got a video to go along with it. It starts with the funk emissary cruising around the dark streets of his home base of Los Angeles before shifting over to a fog-filled shot of him singing and playing a keytar into the camera. Watch the video, which was directed by Jeff Broadway.

Screaming Females - “Empty Head” (Official Video)

Don Giovanni signees have been releasing some incomparable animated videos this year. Faye Orlove illustrated and directed pieces for Mitski and Downtown Boys, and now Screaming Females have presented us with a Tobias Stretched-directed accompaniment to their song “Empty Head,” illustrated by the band’s own Marissa Paternoster. The song is just one of several incredible wailing singles off of Screaming Females’ latest album Rose Mountain, which made our 50 Best Albums Of 2015 So Far list on top of being crowned Album Of The Week when it dropped. Watch as Paternoster’s paper monsters shimmy around the city to the tune of this sparse, guttural song.

Dum Dum Girls - “Coming Down” Video Version 2

Dum Dum Girls released their newest LP, Too True, last year, but just now they’re sharing a video for a track off of their 2011 sophomore album Only In Dreams. The slow-burning Mazzy Star-esque ballad “Coming Down” already has a video, but today, a month after the song was featured in a third-season episode of Orange Is The New Black, we’re premiering an alternate video, which was actually made first but then shelved at the last minute. The song is good either way!

The video they ended up going with by future Dum Dum Girls bassist Malia James is a single black-and-white shot of frontwoman Dee Dee Penny singing while people come up and cut bits of her clothing off. The original video by director Sam Macon is fairly similar — a moody black-and-white clip of Dee Dee wandering around Chinatown and singing into the camera — but she wasn’t comfortable stepping so far out of the shadows. In a press release, she explains, “I couldn’t handle starring in such a straight forward, HD role — it was just too much me. I felt exposed and that made me uncomfortable.” The renewed interest in the song post-Orange Is The New Black inspired her to reconsider, so now, along with the digital reissue of the limited edition “Coming Down” 7″, we get to see the footage that’s been locked up for four years

DJ Quik - “Puffin The Dragon” (Official Video)

The veteran Compton rap innovator DJ Quik released the excellent, nastily playful album The Midnight Life last year, and now he’s got a video for the lush, idiosyncratic album track “Puffin The Dragon.” The video serves as a Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas parody, with Quik playing Hunter S. Thompson. We see him piloting an old Cadillac through the desert, toward Las Vegas, with a whole lot of illicit stuff in the trunk and different visions dancing across his windshield.

Hudson Mohawke - “Warriors” Video (Feat. Pusha T)

Hudson Mohawke’s maximalist EDM opus Lantern is one of the year’s best entries in the canon of electronic music, and today he’s shared a video for the Ruckazoid & Devaeux-featuring “Warriors.” The video was directed by Eric Yue and stars Pusha T as a futuristic warrior. This is the second video he’s appeared in recently — he graced Yogi & Skrillex’s “Burial” video a few weeks back. I vote that we please get Pusha T some roles on the silver screen; he’s so handsome and emotive!

THEESatisfaction - “EarthEE” (Feat. Shabazz Palaces, Porter Ray, & Erik Blood) Video

THEESatisfaction, Shabazz Palaces, and Porter Ray are all unique stars in the Seattle-based collective Black Constellation, a group of musicians and artists who are responsible for some of the most enlightening, genre-bending sounds of the past few years. THEESatisfaction’s style in particular lends itself to a variety of descriptors — avant-rap and astral jazz being the most prominent — and their songs traverse topics of race, gender, and cultural hybridization without bending to mainstream standards. “EarthEE” is the title track off of THEESatisfaction’s latest album, and it finds the duo collaborating alongside their peers Porter Ray and Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces. The new Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes directed video features the group performing against a backdrop of deep indigo textiles, which Alley-Barns says is “a short visual meditation on the textile traditions of home, sacred Geo Metrics, theta based communication and the whirling dervish. A sonically driven work of ancient Afro continuum…”

Summer Camp - “You’re Gone” (Official Video)

Summer Camp is the endearing indie-pop project of married British couple Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley. After providing last year’s original score for Charlie Lyne’s documentary Beyond Clueless, they returned this past spring with their new LP Bad Love. Today, Summer Camp premieres the video for their guitar-fuzzed heartbreak single “You’re Gone,” featuring a roller derby match between humans and zombies. Warmsley plays the human team’s coach who longs for his ex-love Sankey, a zombified green coach. She’s bloodied, angry, and determined to win, while he could care less about the game, mesmerized and staring into the distance with melancholy eyes. Who will win the battle of love and skates?

Watch Foo Fighters Cover The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” With Dave Grohl’s Foot Surgeon

Dave Grohl has been milking his leg injury for all its worth — he made his own special throne to sit on during his recent Foo Fighters shows, and he’s brought out a bunch of guests to compensate for his mobility issues. The latest stop on the Foo Fighters tour was at Fenway Park in Boston last night, and Grohl brought out Dr. Lew C. Schon, his orthopedic surgeon, to look on as he covered the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”

Watch U2 Play “October” For The First Time In 26 Years

As a part of their Innocence + Experience tour, U2 just launched an eight-show run at Madison Square Garden last night. True to the tour’s name, the concert found the band delving into their back catalogue, and they played the tender piano-led title track of their 1981 album October live for the first time in 26 years. Watch fan-footage of the performance below.

Watch Thom Yorke Sing With Portishead At Latitude Festival

As Nigel Godrich hinted, Thom Yorke made a surprise appearance at the second day of the UK’s Latitude Festival yesterday. Portishead brought the Radiohead frontman out for the encore of their headlining set, and they performed “The Rip” off of Portishead’s 2008 album Third together (which Radiohead have covered before). Watch fan-footage of the surprise onstage collab below.

Baio - “Sister Of Pearl” (Official Video)

Vampire Weekend bassist Chris Baio has been making precise electronic pop under his own name for a few years now, but he’s finally getting around to releasing a debut full-length this fall. We’ve heard two songs from The Names already, the thumping “Brainwash yyrr Face” and the undeniably catchy (and Vampire Weekend-y) “Sister Of Pearl.” The latter song is about being yourself and not caring what others think, and Baio puts that credo into action in a stylish, endearing new video that shows him dancing goofily all around London in a suit and sneakers — it reminds me of this (also very lovable) Will Butler video, actually. As Baio told Noisey, “I’ve always loved dancing — some of my earliest life memories involve dancing around my family’s dining room table to “Thriller” when I was little. For this video, Daniel Navetta found some incredible places in London for me to do some dancing. I hope you enjoy watching me creep around the city I’ve lived in for the past two years…I know I had fun making the video.”

Watch 3 New Chemical Brothers Short Films For Born In The Echoes Tour

 

“Go”

The Chemical Brothers are about to embark on a tour in support of their new album, Born In The Echoes (their first one in five years), and today they’ve shared some of the visuals that will be playing in the background at their shows. The clips were co-directed by Adam Smith, who has been working with the duo for more than two decades, and Marcus Lyall. “It really captures the feeling of the song,” Smith said of the visuals on the upcoming tour. “The discombobulation, the balance of fear and euphoria. We got amazingly visceral reactions from the people we cast. You can’t fake it in there – you’re forced to be very present.” Watch the short films for “Go,” “I’ll See You There,” and “EML Ritual” below. below.

“I’ll See You There”:



“EML Ritual”:

Gangrene - “Driving Gloves” (Feat. Action Bronson) Video

Already this year, the Oh No/Alchemist rap duo Gangrene has pumped out a soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto V called Welcome To Los Santos. As if that wasn’t enough, the two California rapper-producers, who’ve named their collaboration after the decomposition of body tissue, are releasing their third LP, You Disgust Me, this August. (We previously shared the bonus track, “Hot Pillow.”) Queens rapper and frequent Alchemist collaborator Action Bronson teams up with Gangrene on the single “Driving Gloves,” and director Jason Goldwatch’s music video shows the three dressed in all black, taking a rental car on a reckless test drive without permission from the stereotypically geeky employee, tearing off and smashing various features of the car and simultaneously spray painting all over it. The destruction in the video is combatted by the song’s twangy, tom-heavy beat.

Vince Staples - “Norf Norf” (Official Video)

Vince Staples’ debut album, Summertime ’06, is hands-down one of the best of the year, and if you haven’t taken the time to listen to it yet, you should do that right now. Staples raps with the kind of chilly, unfazed passivity of a kid who’s dealt with too much shit to get worked up about anything. “Norf Norf” is one of the album’s standout tracks, a boastful declaration of prowess that hangs on the line “I ain’t never ran from nothing but the police.” In the video, Staples gets arrested and locked up, barely looking away from the camera as he raps. This is an excellent follow-up to Staples’ video for “Señorita,” the first single off of Summertime ’06.

Carly Rae Jepsen - “Run Away With Me” (Official Video)

Sometimes it seems like there’s never been a pop star as hapless as Carly Rae Jepsen. Her music is practically flawless, but aside from that, almost every career-related decision feels like a complete flop or just bad luck. Her new album, E•MO•TION, is already out in Japan and leaked weeks ago, but won’t be out in the U.S. until the end of August. The lead single, “I Really Like You,” was another huge hit in the making, but for some reason didn’t chart like it should have. Blame the lackluster, off-kilter video for it maybe? Anyway, E•MO•TION is probably the best pop album of the year even if it goes nowhere. It’s filled with songs co-written by Sia, Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid. There are songs with soaring synths and others with glitzy, simple ones; there’s huge percussion and perfectly positioned click tracks. “Run Away With Me” (co-written by Shellback, among others) has all of those things, and today Jepsen has shared the video for it. In the clip she dances around the city, begging you to escape with her. It’s a cute video, but it has none of the starry glam that she’d need to enter the upper echelon of pop like she deserves. So it goes. Watch the David Kalani Larkins-directed clip.

Arcade Fire - "Porno" (from The Reflektor Tapes) Official Video

Earlier today, Arcade Fire teased a feature-length film called The Reflektor Tapes, and now they’ve shared a new music video set to their track “Porno” that serves as a precursor to that. As the film will be, it was directed by Kahlil Joseph. The first half of the video is made up of shots of the band in Haiti, with two frames positioned on top of each other to provide a wider perspective. The second half is made up of live footage of the whole band, tracking them from before their performance starts through ’til the end. Their signature Reflektor papier-mâché masks make an appearance, of course. Watch  — if this preview’s any indication, the whole film is going to be a wild ride.

Krill - “Torturer” (Official Video)

The main character in Krill’s new video for “Torturer” fights against his most base urges, which personify themselves as a figure dressed in a plastic bear mask. He wanders around an stately but empty New England mansion, making the bed and then immediately tearing it apart, and arranging the couch before throwing all the pillows on the ground. The end of video sees him practically foaming at the mouth, coming to terms with his animal instinct, in a confused inner dialogue that matches the one found in the chorus of the track. Kathleen Hancock and Doug Ross direct.

Young Ejecta - “Into Your Heart” (Official Video)

Young Ejecta is a Brooklyn electronic duo who had to tack on the age descriptor as an appeasement to one DJ Ejecta. That DJ remains rather unknown, but Joel Ford and Leanne Macomber continue to power forward, churning out chirpy, sad electro-pop that manages to reach magnificent heights even as it delves into alien white noise. “Into Your Heart” is one of the best songs off January’s mini-album The Planet, and today they’ve shared a video to accompany it. Directed by Toshadeva Palani, the video follows a solitary dancer through dark rooms and abandoned lots, channeling the universal intensity of this love song through the filter of a single body.

Ciara - “Dance Like We’re Making Love” (Official Video)

Following her very public and very acrimonious breakup with rapper/ex-fiancé Future, Ciara is fully re-embracing her sex-goddess status. In the new video for Jackie single “Dance Like We’re Making Love,” Ciara does just that, chilling seductively — yes, Ciara can make chilling look seductive — in a pool, dancing around a beautiful mansion with her lover, and slowly shedding her clothes as she makes her way to the bedroom. Also, there’s a lion there, because duh, of course there is. Dave Meyers directs.

Outfit - “Framed” (Official Video)

Outfit are a Liverpool five-piece who make sticky-slow deconstructed pop. Their sophomore LP, Slowness, is a phenomenal album, and one that prompted us to name the group a Band To Watch. One of the best things about this band is their knack for getting the uneasy and unsettling parts of life, and distilling those emotions into tilted, experimental pop forms. Today they release the video for “Framed,” and it functions in a similar way; projecting images of lead singer Andrew Hunt in three mirrors at once, or presenting lifeless images of morning rituals in stark black-and-white, only to flip them into surreal, disorienting situations. Watch below, and then I suggest you go buy this record.

Tamaryn - “Cranekiss” (Official Video)

Tamaryn is moving into more weightless territory with her third album, and nowhere is that quality more apparent than on “Cranekiss,” the track that gives the record its name. The video is similarly detached from reality, a moody and trippy vision of Tamaryn’s face as its molded, twisted, and fragmented outwards. The video was created in collaboration with Gang Gang Dance’s Bryan DeGraw. Check it out, plus some words from Tamaryn about its creation, below.

Here’s Tamaryn talking with Billboard about the video:

This video that I’ve made with an artist who I really respect — Bryan DeGraw from Gang Gang Dance. He’s an incredible painter and he draws and he’s an amazing musician and an incredible human being. He offered to do it and he did, so I gave him full creative freedom and I just showed up in Hudson (where he lives) in a spacesuit and I just let him do his magic. I think that it’s got this alien energy to it. It’s somewhat abstract, but it suits the song very well.

We didn’t shoot at the studio. We shot it outside, natural light. We didn’t really discuss it. There was no treatment. He had a picture of this pineapple in water on a mirror, and I was like, “I want to be that pineapple!” And that was really all we did. We made all the stuff together and he edited it. I think he has a really great eye. It’s challenging and abstract, but then there’s times where you really see me and it’s really bare. I think it has a nice balance. And I love the end — the end is very Smashing Pumpkins.

Lower Dens - “Sucker’s Shangri-La” (Official Video)

The great Baltimore dream-rockers Lower Dens released their Escape From Evil album earlier this year, and they’ve just made their second video for a song from the album. Their new “Sucker’s Shangri-La” clip follows the “To Die In L.A.” video, and it shows a man meditatively singing the song in a dimly lit Chinese karaoke bar. In the grainy karaoke video, we see bandleader Jana Hunter singing it, too. Below, watch the video and read some words about it from director Zachary Treitz.

Treitz says:

The karaoke bars in my neighborhood have these filler videos as a background for the American pop songs. Most of them seem like they’re made in less than a day, start to finish, and they follow a basic formula, even though they’re unique to each song: girl, cars, body of water, shots of architecture. We made our own one with Jana in Baltimore, which was a lot of fun because once you’re in the mindset of those videos you start to see great shots everywhere that would otherwise seem terrible. But the music video itself takes place at a Chinatown karaoke bar, with the incredible Hiro Xu singing along to the video we made with Jana.

(via Pitchfork)

A Place To Bury Strangers - "Love High" (Official Video)

A Place To Bury Strangers are still cranking out videos for songs from their most recent album, Transfixation. So far, we’ve got videos for “Straight,” “We’ve Come So Far,” and “What We Don’t See,” and now they’ve shared one for the sub-two-minute track “Love High.” The video is as fast-paced as the song’s runtime, a dizzying collage of the band members walking across the rusted-red walkways of the Williamsburg Bridge. Check it out below.

City Calm Down - “Rabbit Run” (Official Video)

Melbourne quartet City Calm Down embrace New Wave and electro-punk styles, injecting the Joy Division-New Order continuum with traces of the National’s dignified swagger. The band came together in 2008 and caught buzz with their 2012 EP Movements and a series of subsequent singles. They’re set to release their long-awaited debut album In A Restless House this fall, and today they premiere the video for catchy single “Rabbit Run.” In the clip, lead singer Jack Bourke exhaustedly runs through what appears to be a darkly lit and gated up shopping mall. What is he running from? That’s unclear, but it’s attracting a whole security team, knocking over Bourke as they frantically pass by him. It’s a mysterious scene that plays out over the thumping bass and upbeat drums, the hook echoing atop it all: “Believe me/ I’m losing sense of it all.”

Camera Shy - “New Something” (Official Video)

The music and the album art of Camera Shy have something in common: They’re both innocent in nature. The cover of the Oakland band’s debut LP features a girl no more than six years old in a plaid dress smiling next to a cake, presumably on her birthday. Track five off of the record, “New Something,” feels similar to running through a field of unkept grass, eyes squinting toward the sun. The twee sound and feeling are surprising given that Nick Bassett and Lexy Morte, the two musicians who comprise Camera Shy, are affiliated with Bay Area shoegaze outfit Whirr and Philadelphia heavy hitters Nothing. That childlike aesthetic extends to the “New Something” video, a compendium of old cartoon footage.

Pearls Negras - “Meu Bem” (Official Video)

Pearls Negras are a trio of Brazilian teenage girls who can rap their asses off. The girls rap in Portugese, fusing baile-funk with Brazilian bass and New Jack Swing. It’s hard not to see Nicki Minaj as a precursor for this kind of international bad-as-fuck girl group who have zero interest in keeping pop and rap separate. Actually, that fusion is a huge part of the appeal here, and part of what pushed their 2014 effort Biggie Apple to earn our Mixtape Of The Week distinction (RIP). That tape came out last February, followed by Nossa Gang in September, and their debut album will be here this fall.

In anticipation of that project, they’ve shared directors David Alexander and Johannes Schaff’s bright, funky video for “Meu Bem.” The phrase that translates roughly to “my dear,” but there’s nothing tender about this fierce kiss-off. The girls seem ready to take on the entire beach as they strut and stomp down the boardwalk, through a pick up basketball game, and finally, into the ocean itself. Keep your eyes out for plenty more from them; the rap game is wide open for a girl gang like this to come busting through. (Iggy who?) But first, point your eyes.

HEALTH Debut “Dark Enough” Via 3D Printed Song Sculpture

Reify is a startup that turns songs into 3D printed sculptures called “totems,” which then play the music back to you with the help of an interactive phone app. The company just launched a Kickstarter, and a number of artists like YACHT and synth-based noisemakers HEALTH are partnering with them. HEALTH are about to release Death Magic, their first LP in six years, next month, and we’ve already heard early tracks “New Coke” and “Stonefist.” Now they’ve debuted another new song, “Dark Enough,” in a video showcasing Reify’s totem technology.

Kimbra - “Goldmine” (Official Video)

Last summer, New Zealand’s foremost pop experimentalist Kimbra put out a wonderful, stubbornly eclectic sophomore album called The Golden Echo. It did not fare well. In fact, despite its heady, colorful, and technically brilliant layers of textured, psychedelic pop, it had almost no influence on the larger conversation about music last year. I listened to it extensively last July and August while prepping to interview her, but sometimes it feels like I was the only one. It seems like one of those albums that 17-year-olds will dig up in a couple decades, baffled that it had no impact on their parents.

Today she’s released a video for one of the album’s core songs, “Goldmine,” which she told Rolling Stone is part of a metaphor for pain and suffering. Given the way that gold has to be boiled, refined and polished, that analogy makes a lot of sense. Gold foil spills in, around and through everything in the animated clip, keeping perfectly in line with Kimbra’s stuttering art-pop aesthetic. The visual was created by Chester Travis and Timothy Armstrong and shot entirely in an abandoned Berlin warehouse.

Pixx - “Fall In” (Official Video)

The latest addition to the esteemed 4AD roster is Pixx, the songwriting project of 19-year-old Brit Hannah Rodgers. “Fall In” is her debut single, and it’s a beautifully rendered bit of water-logged pop that asks the question, “What can I do?” and responds with “I can’t please you” and a reverie of Rodgers’ weightless moaning. Her sound fits in well with her labelmates, somewhere between Grimes’ airy pop and Holly Herndon’s more experimental side. The song is accompanied by a video of Rodgers sitting on the shore of the south coast of England, looking out into the sea.

PUP - “Dark Days” (Official Video)

Toronto pop-punk band PUP have been touring all over the globe from their native Canada to the US to Europe to Australia. The Band To Watch alums just released a new video for “Dark Days” showing how taxing tour life can be via animation. The cartoon video by Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and Chandler Levack follows the band’s tour in North America and Europe, showing the highs and the lows of life on the road. Even with all the injuries, the alcohol poisoning, and the never-ending exhaustion, there are moments that remind them why they are a band. One scene shows the band climbing on the roof of their van to look at the Northern Lights. The end makes up for everything the band’s gone through — gear being stolen, playing empty gigs, being accosted in the bathroom, etc. — when they share the sketches of their Instagram pics with all the amazing things they’ve done. Then, the real video clip of PUP exiting the stage shows just how far this band has come with a room packed to the brim of cheering fans.

Jidenna - “Classic Man (Remix Feat. Kendrick Lamar)” Video

Jidenna, the charming Janelle Monáe associate who’s well on his way to becoming a star this year, already had a video for his excellent breakout hit “Classic Man.” But after the song blew up, Kendrick Lamar jumped on a remix to spit some excited bars, and now the remix has a video, too. And it’s a fun one, with Jidenna and Kendrick spending quality time with each other at a warehouse party and Jidenna driving around Los Angeles impressing everyone with his man-out-of-time dandy style. Monáe, Ty Dolla $ign, and Issa Rae make cameos.

Trust Fund - “Dreams” (Feat. Alanna McArdle) Video

Bristol, England’s Trust Fund released their debut album, No One’s Coming For Us back in February, and they’ve already followed it up with a new single. “Dreams” dropped at the beginning of the month, and features vocals from former Joanna Gruesome singer, Alanna McArdle, marking her first appearance on a track since she announced her departure from her old band back in June. Trust Fund released the video for “Dreams” today, which features a bunch of friends lip-syncing along to the song. Grace Denton directs.

Catupecu Machu - "Para vestirte hoy" (con Lisandro Aristimuño - 2015) Video

Letra y música: Lisandro Aristimuño

Ficha Técnica:
Guión y Direccion : JAVIER VAZQUEZ
Producción Ejecutiva: TAMARA HENDEL
Cámara y dirección de Fotografia : JULIA ZARATE - JAVIER VAZQUEZ
Asistente de Dirección : MAGGIE IGLESIAS
Actriz : REGINA MONTT
FX Micropájaros : PANCHO FERRARI
Arte y Vestuario : LIA FERREYRA
Edición : SIMON BOSIO
Color : RODRIGO SILVESTRI (SIN SISTEMA POST)
Catering : HELENA BRANDY
Agradecimientos : SANTIAGO BONTA , LASASTRA , RED KIMONO , SINSISTEMA POST, DEREK LOPEZ .

Coliseum - “Sharp Fangs, Pale Flesh” Video (Feat. Will Oldham)

“Sharp Fangs, Pale Flesh” is a song off of Coliseum’s most recent record, Anxiety’s Kiss, which dropped back in May. It’s a nuanced tale about a haunting, vampiric woman with “sharp fangs and pale skin” who pursues the narrator and eventually consumes him. Coliseum’s frontman Ryan Patterson directed the video for the song, starring Will Oldham as a lonely god-fearing man who finds himself at the mercy of this wraith-like woman, who’s played by Katie Peabody. It’s all very Baudelaire.

Watch A Young Thom Yorke Play Experimental Music In College

Earlier this week, we saw footage of a very young Thom Yorke playing “High And Dry” with Headless Chickens, the band he fronted before Radiohead. Well, the vintage-Yorke-on-film well is even deeper than that. And now, via Reddit again, we get to see him along with some Exeter University classmates playing a “contemporary classical concert” circa 1990. The 22-minute experimental piece seems to be largely improvised, and it has Yorke sitting next to his Headless Chickens bandmate Simon Shackleton, the two of them making weird synth noises. Around the 14:50 mark, you can also hear what sounds like Yorke wordlessly ululating.

FIDLAR - “West Coast” (Official Video)

California punk rockers FIDLAR have reloaded the snot and are about to come back with their sophomore album Too. After the awesome high-concept video for first single “40 Oz. On Repeat,” they’ve gone decidedly simpler with the clip for the neenering follow-up “West Coast.” The whole video is made up of footage of sweaty live shows and drunken post-show antics. It’s a lot of fun. Ryan Baxley directs.

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - “Lock All The Doors” (Official Video)

Earlier this year, Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds released Chasing Yesterday, post-Oasis basically-solo album #2. He’s already made a heap of videos for album tracks: “In The Heat Of The Moment,” “Do The Damage,” “Ballad Of The Mighty I,” “Riverman.” And now he’s got a fifth video, this one for the churning “Lock All The Doors.” This time around, it’s one of those edited-together live-show-and-tour-life videos. But unlike so many of those, this one isn’t a halfassed token effort. Instead, it goes to great lengths to make Noel look like a total badass, which is, after all, the point. It makes his shows look great, and it includes a bit of footage of his visit to James Corden’s Late Late Show.