11/27/2015

Coldplay - “Adventure Of A Lifetime” (Official Video)



Coldplay shared “Everglow,” their song with Gwyneth Paltrow, yesterday, and they’ve followed it today with the video for A Head Full Of Dreams lead single “Adventure Of A Lifetime.” As previously teased, it features the members of Coldplay rendered as dancing CGI apes for some reason. It looks as silly as it did when apes on the AMAs. Mat Whitecross directed the video with help from a huge staff, and you can watch it below.
Coldplay – Adventure Of A Lifetime (Official video) Here it is! The full video for Adventure Of A Lifetime, the first single from the new album, A Head Full Of Dreams (out December 4).
Posted by Coldplay on Friday, November 27, 2015

Santigold - “Who Be Lovin’ Me” (Feat. ILOVEMAKONNEN) Video



Earlier this month, Santigold announced her new album 99¢, the follow-up to 2012’s Master Of My Make Believe, and shared its groovy lead single “Can’t Get Enough Of Myself.” Now she’s given us a video for another track, the promised iLoveMakonnen collab “Who Be Lovin’ Me,” which was produced by Toronto electronic duo Zeds Dead. “We met Makonnen on the Mad Decent Boat Party last year and knew he could kill this beat,” Zeds Dead said in a press release. “He hit us up and said he and Santigold both were jumping on it. We’re big fans of hers, so when he brought that back to us it was a no-brainer. The record just came together really naturally and the final cut is something we’re all really happy with.” The video, which Santigold directed along with Trouble Andrew, was filmed back in September at this year’s Made In America festival in Philadelphia. Watch below, and watch out for cameo appearances by A-Trak, Big Sean, De La Soul, DJ Mustard, Earl Sweatshirt, Fabolous, Justine Skye, Meek Mill, Vic Mensa, and more.

Tame Impala - “The Less I Know The Better” (Official Video) NSFW



Tame Impala have already shared a couple of hallucinatory videos for Currents’ “Cause I’m A Man” and “Let It Happen,” and now they’ve given us another for “The Less I Know The Better.” Directed by CANADA, the clip reframes Kevin Parker’s heartsick lyrics as the colorful story of a basketball player whose cheerleader crush hooks up with a literal gorilla named Trevor. (Gorilla videos seem to be a new trend?) You can watch the (fairly NSFW) video here.

The Killers - “Dirt Sledding” (Official Video)



The Killers’ annual Christmas single (and music video) has now arrived. The “Dirt Sledding” video is the third in a trilogy with 2007’s “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” and 2012’s “I Feel It In My Bones” starring former Killers tour manager Ryan Pardey as a deranged Santa trying to murder Brandon Flowers. Except in this one, they seem to make peace! The power of Christmas! Other holiday mascots including a Halloween pumpkin, a Thanksgiving turkey/pilgrim, the Easter bunny, and…the tooth fairy(?) are also there, and actor Richard Dreyfuss shows up for a few lines in the song. Matthew Gray Gubler directs, and you can watch here.

M.I.A. - “Borders” (Official Video)



M.I.A. has shared the video for her new single “Borders” via Apple Connect. The self-directed clip features a swaggering Maya Arulpragasam joining a band of refugees to climb fences, pile onto small boats, and wade through water. At one point she wears a Paris Saint-Germain soccer jersey with the “Fly Emirates” logo replaced by “Fly Pirates.”

Watch Pusha T’s Darkest Before Dawn Short Film Trailer



Earlier this week, Pusha T announced Darkest Before Dawn, a new album coming next month as a prelude to the long-awaited King Push, which will be arriving this spring. Darkest For Dawn will be accompanied by a short film directed by Kid Art, and now Pusha has shared a trailer for that, full of portentous voiceover and religious imagery.

11/26/2015

Chastity Belt - “Lydia” (Official Video)



Seattle four-piece Chastity Belt released their very good sophomore LP, Time To Go Home, earlier this year. Most of the videos they’ve given us for its tracks have been charming lo-fi excursions, but the new clip for “Lydia” is more deliberate in its imagery and symbolism, constructing a black-and-white dreamworld out of hand-cut paper scenery. “We were hoping we could shoot the paper in such a way that it would look dreamy and strange, both delicate and sturdy,” director Shaun Libman told NPR, where the video premiered. “Every shape and curve…embodies the emotional state of the main character.”

11/25/2015

Mew - “Making Friends” (Official Video)



After a long break, Danish proggers Mew returned this year with the new album +-. They’ve already made two videos for “The Night Believer,” as well as clips for “Satellites,” “Water Slides,” and “Witness,” and now they’ve got one for the odd smooth-funk tune “Making Friends.” The new clip throws the band, wearing freaky mime facepaint, into a sort of half-rotoscoped animated landscape that looks a bit like the apocalypse. Various weird monsters make appearances, as do foxes, dinosaurs, and a big meteor. Jonas Bjerre directs, and I have no idea what any of it means.

Watch Charli XCX’s Documentary About Feminism And The Music Business



Over the summer, while she was touring in support of last year’s Sucker and playing festivals like Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, Charli XCX filmed a 42-minute documentary about feminism — “the real f-word” — and what it’s like to be a woman in the music industry, a frequent interview question that Charli says is “annoying, but still necessary.” In addition to behind-the-scenes footage of her shows, The F Word And Me features interviews with other female pop artists including Ryn Weaver, Hannah Diamond, LIZ, Marina And The Diamonds, and MS MR’s Lizzy Plapinger talking about their approach to feminism. (Also Jack Antonoff.) The doc aired tonight on BBC3, and you can watch the entire thing below.

Rustie - “First Mythz” (Official Video)



Rustie loves to drop shit unexpectedly! He put out a whole album, EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE, at the beginning of the month with barely any notice, and today he’s put out a video for early single “First Mythz” while doing an AMA over on Reddit. This takes all the dolphin samples in that track to its logical conclusion, filling the video with various sea life (mostly dolphins) cut together to match the warp speed of the song.

MMOTHS - “Deu” (Official Video)



MMOTHS is the moniker of Jack Colleron, an electronic producer based out of Ireland that creates dark, evocative music that treads somewhere between ambient and downtempo. He’s released two EP’s, his self-titled debut and Diaries, and supported the xx on a few tour dates back in 2012. His debut record, LUNEWORKS, is out next year and he’s shared a video for its lead single “Deu,” directed by Hassan Rahim and Scott J. Ross. Taking a simple and highly interpretive route, the video consists of two contrasting clips of stark, symbolic imagery, including burning flowers and long red corridors. Combined with the ghostly and engrossing electronics of the song, it’s a mystifying entryway into the work of this new artist.

EL VY - “No Time To Crank The Sun” (Official Video)



EL VY, the side-project duo of the National’s Matt Berninger and Menomena’s Brent Knopf, dropped their debut album Return To The Moon last month, and they’ve just come out with a new video for the brooding album track “No Time To Crank The Sun.” In this one, we see time-lapse footage of Berninger and Knopf doing all the album-promotion things that bands have to do after they get their records ready. They pose for photos, they play intimate promotional shows, and they do lots and lots of interviews, presumably answering the same few questions over and over. (You will not be surprised to learn that Berninger does most of the talking.) There’s a bit of recording in there, but this is more a video about all the menial tasks that creative people have to do to make sure people hear their shit. Tom Berninger — the brother of Matt who directed the National documentary Mistaken For Strangers, not the actor who was in Major League and Platoon — directs.

Rome Fortune - “Dance” (Official Video)



For his new single “Dance,” the Atlanta rap weirdo Rome Fortune got a beat from the Montreal house producer Kaytranada. And now he also got a video from the director GOLDRUSH. In the clip, we see cartoon energy crackling across a night-time cityscape, as Rome Fortune forgets his problems and loses his mind on a nightclub dancefloor. I don’t know whether the girl in the video is supposed to be real, or if she’s Rome’s projection, but it’s the rare rap video in which that’s at least an open question.

Wild Nothing - “To Know You” & “TV Queen” Video



Jack Tatum’s shimmering indie-rock project Wild Nothing is returning early next year with Life Of Pause, their first full-length since 2012’s Nocturne. The album was recorded over several weeks in Los Angeles and Stockholm with producer Thom Monahan; Peter Bjorn & John’s John Eriksson contributed drums and marimba, and Medicine guitarist Brad Laner and “a crew of saxophonists” also helped out. In a press release, Tatum calls the album his most “mature and honest” work to date, and this is what he has to say about it:
I desperately wanted for this to be the kind of record that would displace me. I’m terrified by the idea of being any one thing, or being of any one genre. And whether or not I accomplish that, I know that my only hope of getting there is to constantly reinvent. That reinvention doesn’t need to be drastic, but every new record has to have it’s own identity, and it has to have a separate set of goals from what came before … There’s definitely a different kind of ‘self’ in the picture this time around. There’s no real love lost, it’s much more a record of coming to terms and defining what it is that you have — your place, your relationships. I view every record as an opportunity to write better songs. At the end of the day it still sounds like me, just new.
One song from the LP, “Adore,” was debuted live earlier this year, and now the band have shared two new tracks, “To Know You” and “TV Queen,” in the form of one long music video, opening on the same image of Tatum featured in the album art. Not much actually happens, and I’m not entirely sure what any of it means — most of the second part appears to be the same as the first, just from a different perspective and with minor differences — but it is successful in creating a bizarre, slightly off-kilter atmosphere.

PINS - “Got It Bad” (Official Video)



The dreamy UK band PINS released an impressive album called Wild Nights earlier this year, and we’ve posted their videos for “Young Girls,” “Everyone Says,” and “Dazed By You.” Their latest clip is for the lovely reverb hymn “Got It Bad,” and it shows the members of the band wandering around their Manchester hometown — passing around bottles, waving sparklers, and generally looking like a gang that you’d like to join. Sarah Jenny Johnson directed the video.

CL - “Hello Bitches” (Official Video)



CL is the most visible member of the Korean girl group 2NE1, which makes her a massive pop star in much of the world and also one of the forces behind the greatest music video of all time. Lately, she’s been transitioning to English-language music, switching back and forth between rapping and singing over huge, fizzy trap stompers. Earlier this year, she teamed up with Diplo, Riff Raff, and OG Maco for the ridiculously catchy “Doctor Pepper.” And now she’s got a ridiculously catchy single of her own. CL’s working on her first-ever solo album, and she tells Noisey that the new banger “Hello Bitches” is her “street single.” On the track, she switches back and forth between English and Korean and radiates star-level ferocity all over the place. And in the video, she and a team of dancers take over an abandoned warehouse and project dangerous levels of charisma. Choreographer Parris Goebel directs.

11/23/2015

David Bowie - “★” (Blackstar) Video



The short film for David Bowie’s new single “★” premiered just a few minutes ago on Palladia TV and at a screening in Brooklyn. Now, the whole thing is online for everyone to see. It was directed by Johan Renck (who also directed the UK show The Last Panthers, which uses the track as its theme song). It’s 10 minutes long! It’s Bowie! Of course it’s weird and a must-watch — do it below.

Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz - “Lighter” (Official Video)



Miley Cyrus and the Flaming Lips just kicked off a tour in support of their bizarre, messy, occasionally great and occasionally unlistenable album Dead Petz, and now they’ve shared a video for the Mike Will Made It-produced slow jam “Lighter,” which cracked our 5 Best Songs Of The Week list when it came out in September. “Fuck yeah! After our 1st show in Chicago (which was totally turnt) we loved seeing y’all singing along to all the Dead Petz jamsssss but seemed like this one was a fan favorite!!!!!” Miley wrote in a Facebook post. “For all of you who can’t be with us in Detroit tonight and of course for all of you who will here is the official Lighter music video directed by me and Wayne Coyne featuring Jen Stark’s bad ass animated kaleidoscopic projections!!!!!” The video features Miley singing, dancing around, and smoking while slathered in trippy rainbow effects.

Dev09 - “You Made Me” (Official Video)



Last month, we posted “You Made Me,” an excellent piece of sneery, minimal club-pop from Dev09, an 18-year-old singer who comes from South Bend, Indiana. After we posted it, Stelios Phili, the A$AP Ferg collaborator who produced the track, emailed me and told me that Brett Haley, director of the buzzed-about new movie I’ll See You In My Dreams, had heard the track on Stereogum and loved it. He liked it so much, in fact, that he flew to South Bend and filmed the video for free. And so I’m delighted to report that the new video is really, really good. Haley films Dev09 as she struts through her hometown, moving through a skating rink and a machine shop and a few tree-lined suburban streets. And she has a very serious presence, which is more than enough to carry the video. I don’t know if music videos can make stars anymore — especially if the artist in question is an unsigned newcomer — but this feels like a starmaking performance.

The Dø - “Trustful Hands” (Official Video)



Paris electro-pop duo the Dø tamper with upbeat synths and catchy, irresistible choruses, and their video for “Trustful Hands” is in keeping with the same kind of mindful energy. Shot in Japan, the video acts like a performance art piece of sorts, with members Olivia Merilahti and Dan Levy dancing and lying on the ground in the middle of a crowded Tokyo city center, welcoming the gawks of passers-by. The Dø do French indie in the same vein of acts like Superbus and Phoenix, and “Trustful Hands” is just all-around delightful. The clips are interchanged and superimposed by some French New Wave-ish visuals, and there’s even a brief snippet of Merilahti performing a pretty awesome rendition of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” on karaoke. “Trustful Hands” is pulled from the Dø’s third LP Shake Shook Shaken.

Watch The Muppets Parody Adele’s “Hello” Video



The American Music Awards are going down tonight — as in right now — and during the show, ABC aired an Adele-centric promo for their rebooted version of The Muppets. It’s a brief Muppet recreation of Adele’s “Hello” video, starring Miss Piggy as Adele and Kermit as her ex.

Ducktails - “Don’t Want To Let You Know” (Official Video)



Real Estate guitarist Matt Mondanile put out his last album as Ducktails, St. Catherine, just a few months ago, and now he’s already followed it up with new music. Last night, he played a show in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and today, he shot a video of himself walking through the city, which serves as the visuals for new track “Don’t Want to Let You Know.” As Pitchfork reports, Mondanile directed the video himself, and it was filmed by Ross Chait. The song itself exceedingly chill, even by Ducktails standards, pairing a subtly funky bassline with some chillwave-throwback synths.

Panda Bear - “Crosswords” (Official Video)



“Crosswords” is the fifth track from Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper to get a video, following clips for “Mr Noah,” “Boys Latin,” “Tropic Of Cancer,” and “Come To Your Senses.” This one was directed by Mount Emult, and stars a very jovial dancer dude that uses a keycard to enter a building, which I guess brings him into some other dimension. Or maybe he just takes acid? The rest of the video is filled with an overload of upside-down, shifting, trippy visuals. You think anyone in Animal Collective does drugs?

Chvrches - “Empty Threat” (Official Video)



Chvrches released the excellent sophomore album Every Open Eye a few months ago, and now they’ve given us the first truly great music video of their career. Chvrches themselves don’t appear in the video for the Every Open Eye track “Empty Threat.” Instead, the clip tells the story of a crew of high-school goths from suburban Florida. We see them getting smashed and going to a waterpark together, and it looks like so much fun. Director Austin Peters films everything with a naturalistic glow, and it’s a joy to see suburban goths, who are so often treated as punchlines, being depicted with real affection like this.

Nao - “Bad Blood” (NSFW) Video



Nao – “Bad Blood” (NSFW) (Dir. Ian Pons Jewell)

We see enough videos that evoke David Lynch or David Cronenberg. Let’s see some more videos that evoke Terry Gilliam.

Robin Schulz - “Show Me Love” (Feat. J.U.D.G.E.) Video



Robin Schulz – “Show Me Love” (Feat. J.U.D.G.E.) (Dir. Zak Stoltz)

These guys managed to make a cheesed-out romantic EDM video that consists entirely of people falling down and bumping into things, and they found room for a genuinely confounding ending. Salute.

Arca - “Front Load” Video (NSFW)



The abstract electronic producer Arca releases his new album Mutant today, and he’s also got a new video for “Front Load,” one of the humming instrumentals from the LP. The new video follows Arca’s clips for “EN” and “Vanity,” and it’s the first video from this album that Arca’s regular collaborator Jesse Kanda directed. This one, like the previous two, focuses very intimately on Arca’s video, and this time the result is something that you should absolutely not watch at work. The video is full of blurry, out-of-focus shots of Arca’s dong, as well as his eye and (I think) the inside of his mouth.

Alex G - “Brite Boy” (Official Video)



Last month, the young lo-fi auteur Alex G released Beach Music, his umpteenth album but his first for a proper label. He’s been cranking out videos for songs from the album, and we’ve already posted his clips for “The Curse,” “Bug,” and “Kicker.” His new clip for the ramshackle campfire strummer “Brite Boy” is a psychedelic animated affair. It tells the story of two foxes who go on a road trip that turns into a vision quest and then a funeral, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Elliot Bech directs.

Pusha T - “Untouchable” (Official Video)



Last week, the great Virginia rapper (and newly minted G.O.O.D. President) Pusha T reentered our lives with the mean-as-fuck new Timbaland-produced single “Untouchable.” This is reportedly the first taste of Pusha’s new album King Push: Darkest Before Dawn, which is set to feature appearances from A$AP Rocky, Beanie Sigel, and The-Dream, as well as production from Kanye West, Q-Tip, Hudson Mohawke, and Puff Daddy, among others. As Miss Info points out, Pusha has just debuted the “Untouchable” video, in which director Harrison Boyce films Pusha moving confidently through a sticky, ominous nighttime New York cityscape. It began as a Tidal exclusive, but now you can watch the official YouTube version.

11/19/2015

Tinashe - “Party Favors” (Official Video)



Early next year, Tinashe will follow up her excellent R&B debut Aquarius with a new album called Joyride. She’s already made a video for “Player,” the album’s first single, which features Chris Brown. And now, as Miss Info points out, she’s made another clip, for a much better song. “Party Favors” is a stumbling, spaced-out track that once featured Young Thug, who is mysteriously absent from the version of the song that just got a video. In the clip, Tinashe, doing her best to look high out of her mind, spends some time at a gathering of glamorous art-freaks. It’s a shame that Thug isn’t in it; he’d probably fit in with this crew better than Tinashe does.

The Darkness - “I Am Santa” (Official Video)



‘Tis the season! The Darkness already had one very successful holiday track with “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)” when their debut sensation was released back in 2003, but they’re giving it another go in their post-comeback era with “I Am Santa,” a ridiculous song with an equally ridiculous music video. They straightened out a little bit with their most recent record, Last Of Our Kind, but they still know how to give into the glam better than most, and they retreat back to old habits for this. Of course, it’s catchy and a lot of fun — watch via Noisey.

Porches - “Hour” (Official Video)



Porches released their latest single, “Hour,” last month and announced that they’ve signed to Domino Records. Pool is due out in February, and that first single is just a small taste of the new sonic landscape that Aaron Maine has been delving into in the years since Slow Dance In The Cosmos was released. The song also features vocals by Maine’s collaborator and partner Greta Kline (aka Frankie Cosmos), and their relationship was documented in a recent feature penned by Colin Joyce. The Alan Del Rio Ortiz-directed video for “Hour” features Kline and Maine driving through the suburbs in the hours before dawn. The neon light that illuminates their profiles turns this peaceful night drive into something a bit more sinister; It has that threatening, intoxicating Drive aesthetic.

Majical Cloudz - “Game Show” (Official Video)



Last month, Majical Cloudz released Are You Alone?, a stark and powerful new album. The two members of the group directed the album’s first two videos, for “Silver Car Crash” and “Downtown,” and they both followed the same intimate format, with frontman Devon Welsh staring into the camera with an almost unsetting familiarity. Their new clip for “Game Show” is different. While it’s the official video, it’s an actual live clip, recorded at the duo’s record release show at New York’s National Sawdust last month. In monolithic black-and-white, we see the duo performing on a flower-strewn stage, with some geometrically fascinating architecture behind them. Bill Kirstein directs.

Caroline Polachek - “The Boy Who I’ll See Again” (Official Video)



Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek wrote original music for a MAKE Beauty collaborative film. “The Boy Who I’ll See Again” is a reworking of the Greek myth of Endymion, and the Adam McClelland-directed clip provides an illustration of the tale. The black and white, cut-and-paste aesthetic of the short film recalls surrealist cinema of the 1920s, particularly the work of Luis Buñuel. You can download Polachek’s song for free at the MAKE Beauty site.

Julia Holter - “Silhouette” (Official Video)



One of the many highlights from Julia Holter’s latest auteur-pop treasure Have You In My Wilderness is the gently unassuming, quietly building “Silhouette.” That track now has a video to go along with it, directed by Rick Bahto, featuring Holter listlessly hanging out at home, a fair bit of the titular silhouettes, and some venetian blinds. It’s an elegantly unfussy video, much like the song it accompanies.

Puscifer - “The Remedy” (Official Video)



Tool announced their first run of 2016 tour dates today, and today the Maynard James Keenan-led band Puscifer released a new video for “The Remedy” off of their recent album Money Shot. The Adam Rothlein and Puscifer-directed clip centers around a boxer, and scenes of his life are interspersed with footage of the band performing. Loudwire premiered the video today.

11/17/2015

John Cale - “Close Watch” (Feat. Amber Coffman) Video



Over the course of his long career, the former Velvet Underground member John Cale has recorded a few different versions of his song “Close Watch”; different versions of it have appeared on his 1975 album Helen Of Troy and his 1982 album Music For A New Society. (Courtney Barnett also covered the song earlier this year.) Early next year, Cale will M:FANS, a new reworking of Music For A New Society that’ll also include a remastered version of that album and three unreleased bonus tracks. The newest version of “Close Watch” features a clanking synthetic beat and a backing vocal from the Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman. And in director Abigail Portner’s new “Close Watch” video, we see Cale and Coffman attending a creepy fancy-dress ball together in the middle of the day.

Public Access T.V. - “In Love And Alone” (Official Video)



Public Access T.V. have just shared a video for “In Love And Alone,” the B-side to their recent “Patti Peru” single. The clip shows the four band members in a whirlwind night around New York City, coming in and out of bars, restaurants, and arcades around the East Village and Chinatown, all as a camera hurriedly follows them throughout.

Great Grandpa - “Mostly Here” (Official Video)



Great Grandpa released their debut EP, Can Opener, at the beginning of the year. It’s five songs worth of knotty, twisted, and warm rock music that’s as melodically satisfying as it is, at times, confounding. The Seattle band has a knack for making sure everything slides into place with just the right amount of irregular edges, and they prove how well of a handle they have on that balance time and time again throughout their debut. They’re a band that shines just as brightly in individual moments as they do over the course of a whole song. And while it’s easy to drift off and follow one interlocking rhythm to its conclusion and lose the forest for the trees a bit, the forest is just as well-structured as those smaller moments. Great Grandpa borrow from some obvious touchstones, they never feel too comfortable settling into just one for too long, a promising proclivity for such a young band. 

Can Opener is getting a vinyl reissue later this year, and the band’s releasing a video for EP highlight “Mostly Here” to draw attention to it. Opening with a sigh of chords, the track heaves along with a weary lack of energy. The video for it is similarly languid, as all five members of the band come to rest in the wetlands, playing the song off of children’s instruments and staring drearily into the camera. It was directed by Pat Goodwin.

The Silence - "Little Red Record Company" (Official Video)



The Silence was built from the remnants of the Japanese psych band Ghost (not to be confused with the Swedish metal band of the same name). Fronted by Masaki Batoh, the group released their self-titled debut album as the Silence earlier this year via Drag City, and they already have another new one on the way called Hark The Silence. We’ve heard one track from the record — “Ancient Wind Part 2” — and today they’ve shared another one, “Little Red Record Company.” It’s a gently picked paean that bursts apart in its final minutes, blossoming into a horn-heavy celebration. The track is attached to a video directed by Kazuo Ogino.

Wray - “Hypatia” (Official Video)



Hypatia, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, was murdered in Egypt by a mob of fanatical Christian monks in 415 AD. Being one of history’s first female scholars and also an avowed paganist, her symbol as a genius and contrarian thinker has inspired artists and authors throughout time. Director Dawn Carol Garcia, who’s formerly made videos for Destroyer, is now adding her piece to the legacy by centering WRAY’s new phantasmagoric video around the ever-enigmatic Hypatia. Throughout the colorful montage of Egyptian symbols and cutesy scenes (one includes an adorable puppy), a woman learns about Hypatia on television and makes out with her in a lucid dream. It’s the first video and title track from Wray’s upcoming sophomore LP, Hypatia, which will be dropped in early 2016.

Mykki Blanco - “Coke White, Starlight” (Official Video)



The confrontational New York rapper Mykki Blanco has a history of making intense, iconic music videos, and the new clip for “Coke White, Starlight,” a track from Blanco’s new C-ORE compilation, certainly fits the bill. Blanco and director Tristan Patterson filmed the clip in Greece, and it shows Blanco dressed up like Marilyn Monroe, staring at televised Nazi rallies, and plunging underwater to stab an octopus with a knife. It’s a vivid and psychedelic vision of a video, and even though it has a narrative that’s not easy to figure out, there’s still a “to be continued” tag at the end. Below, watch the video and read some words about it from Blanco.

Ty Dolla $ign - “Saved” (Feat. E-40) Video



Last week, West Coast R&B hedonist Ty Dolla $ign finally released his official full-length debut Free TC, and now he’s shared a new video for the E-40-featuring, DJ Mustard-produced “Saved.” Directed by Elliott Sellers, it depicts Ty$ hanging out on a throne in the clouds while attractive women writhe around beside him. E-40 is there too.

Metric - “The Governess” (Official Video)



Canadian alt-pop stars Metric released their Pagans In Vegas album a couple of months ago, and now they’ve followed up their video for “The Shade” with a new one for the strummy stomp “The Governess.” This one focuses exclusively on frontwoman Emily Haines. First, it shows her piloting an old convertible through the Nevada desert and rocking out outside a beat-up trailer. Then, we see her carrying a beat-up guitar case down the Las Vegas strip. It’s the sort of mythic Americana that only a foreigner would make. Lauren Graham — not the one from Gilmore Girls and Parenthood — directs.

Joey Bada$$ ft. Kiesza - "Teach Me" (Official Music Video)



Joey Bada$$ released his collaboration with the Canadian singer and multi-instrumentalist Kiesza, “Teach Me,” way back in January as a single off of this year’s B4.DA.$$. The song rides on the introductory line: “Won’t you teach me how to dance,” which makes the accompanying video an enjoyable non-surprise. Rik Cordero directs as Bada$$, Kiesza, and co. take on the streets of New York-

11/16/2015

Yvette - “Calm And Content” (Official Video)



Not long after releasing their visceral Time Management EP, the New York noise-punk duo Yvette have a new video for the industrial-strength ripper “Calm And Content.” Anthony Sylvester and Ant DeRose directed the clip, which focuses on the two band members and which makes for an appropriately harrowing complement to the song. The video is all quick-edit flashes and sweaty, uncomfortable zoom-ins, and it depicts both band members as big-eyed, blank-faced automatons.

WUME - “Gold Leaf” (Official Video)



April Camlin and Al Schatz comprise WUME, a self-described radical Baltimore band, formerly of Chicago. They’ve toured with Dan Deacon and collaborated with Matmos’ M.C. Schmidt and are named after Wümme, the German town were Faust recorded its early music. Now WUME are back on the road, and to herald the tour dates they’ve shared a video for “Gold Leaf” from their recent album MAINTAIN. The song is a squiggly, synth-driven instrumental that manages to be reflective and buoyant all at once; fans of the aforementioned Faust or Deacon will probably dig it. It’s accompanied by a video by Danielle Criqui and John Jones featuring the checkered-flag equivalent to It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Green Man living his life.

Empress Of - “Icon” (Official Video)



A couple of months ago, Empress Of released Me, a very good album of auteurist pop music. And after giving us a vivid, memorable music video for “Standard,” she’s got a new one for the blippy, contemplative “Icon.” The new video works as a sort of ode to solitude, with director Eli Born filming Lorely Rodriguez in an autumn forest and on a busy New York street, soaking up sunlight and dancing to whatever’s playing in her earbuds. On the video, Rodriguez writes, “I found a cinematographer that I loved and we just talked to each other for a couple of weeks. It was this kind of co-direction, we talked about what the song meant, how I wanted it to look, where we wanted to shoot, and how we would get the feeling of the song out of these locations. It was by far my favorite music video I’ve made.”

Weezer - “Thank God For Girls” (Official Video)



Weezer’s new single “Thank God For Girls” already got a fairly involved cannoli binge eating lyric video, but apparently that wasn’t enough because the band’s just shared an official video for the track. It continues with the religious imagery that was featured on its Pope-starring artwork — Rivers Cuomo is an evangelical preacher who also plays poker with a bunch of women in his spare time, and rightfully gets his ass kicked at the end.

Snakehips - “All My Friends” (Feat. Tinashe & Chance The Rapper) Video



Last month, the London production duo Snakehips came out with “All My Friends,” an excellent pop lament about constantly being around fucked-up people. The track features both Tinashe and Chance The Rapper, and while Chance doesn’t appear in the new video for the song, Tinashe does. She serves as a sort of Greek chorus for the video, which lingers on a line of kids waiting to get into a club, each of them playing out their own little stories. The camera is as much a character as any of the actual humans, and before you ask, yes, the video does feature someone puking into a trashcan. Mister Whitmore directed the video, structuring it as one long tracking shot, albeit one with some obvious edit points.

11/13/2015

Puff Daddy & The Family - “Workin” (Official Video)



Last week, Sean “Diddy” Combs went back to his old Puff Daddy moniker and released the shockingly strong free mixtape MMM. The one advance single from that tape was “Workin,” a track that samples Toro Y Moi dance-music side project Les Sins’ 2014 single “Bother.” And today, Puff has shared his “Workin” video, as Nah Right points out. Hype Williams, the music-video genius who most recently directed Puff’s “Finna Get Loose” video, is once again behind the camera. But for a Hype Williams video, this one is relatively low-impact. It’s just Puff and crew striking tough-guy poses while Williams projects colorful, psychedelic lights all over them.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow - “Hey, You’re Mine” (Official Video)



People who are into wrestling are really fucking into wrestling, and people who aren’t still tend to want to look on with curious fascination. Such is the case with A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s new video for “Hey, You’re Mine,” which features OTW Pro Wrestling members hanging out before matches and fighting in the ring. It’s an odd accompaniment to the mellow, shoegazey single, which was officially released today on the band’s new double EP Planning Weed Like It’s Acid / Life Is Loss, but in this case, the contrast works. The clip was created by Jen Goma, Ty Flowers, and Jon Cooper.

Panic! At The Disco - "Victorious" (Official Video)



Panic! at the Disco have dropped the epic clip for new single "Vicorious." Death of a Bachelor, the band's fifth album and first with Brendon Urie as its sole member, will be released on January 15th via Fueled By Ramen/DCD2 Records.

Weezer's Rivers Cuomo helped write the dynamic rock song with Urie, and the video is just as massive as the track. The clip opens with Urie in a boxing ring preparing for and subsequently winning a match. The video cuts to a less celebratory Urie in his home after his girlfriend has broken up with him. When he fights the urge to call his ex, he's presented with a large, $1 million check.

Fantastical victories, like a key to the city, reward his positive, post-break-up behavior. The clip ends with Urie back in the winning boxing ring after meeting and successfully falling in love with someone new.

In April, founding member and drummer Spencer Smith left Panic! at the Disco following a two-year hiatus to recover from drug and alcohol abuse. Smith and Urie had released two albums as a duo following the departure of other founding members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker, including 2013's Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!

Coldplay Will Be Gorillas In Their “Adventure Of A Lifetime” Video



Coldplay love to tease! Before announcing their new album, A Head Full Of Dreams, they planted enough bread crumbs for fans to figure out the release date and title. Before releasing their first single, “Adventure Of A Lifetime,” they sent out a snippet of the track. And now, a few weeks before the video for that song is out, they’ve given us a preview of what the video will look like. It’s weird! They all dress up in motion capture suits and are turned into some Planet Of The Apes-looking gorillas. Very bizarre! Check out the clip below.

Watch Pearl Jam Debut “Comfortably Numb” Cover In The Rain In Brazil



Pearl Jam have played many, many classic rock covers over the years, but one song they’ve never done as a band is Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” (Eddie Vedder has sung it with Roger Waters, but that’s it.) Last night, the band covered “Comfortably Numb” for the first time in Porto Alegre, Brazil, while rain poured down on the crowd. This was the first song of the second set of encores in what would turn out to be a 34-song set; Pearl Jam don’t fuck around. At the same show, they also covered Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” and Neil Young’s “Fuckin’ Up.” Watch a fan-made video of the “Comfortably Numb” cover.

AURORA - “Half The World Away” (Oasis Cover) Video



AURORA’s “Half The World Away” cover turns an Oasis song into a wistful piano ditty with a constellation of quality influences. The track strikes me as noirish Lana Del Rey torch song performed with Tobias Jesso Jr.’s doe-eyed innocence and a microscopic pinch of Joanna Newsom’s vocal creak. It’s like something out of a Disney cartoon about a doomed lounge singer. The 18-year-old Norwegian made an instant impression on me, and not just because of the striking visuals in the accompanying video, but those are quite pretty too, as you’ll see.

Poliça - "Lime Habit" (Official Music Video)



Poliça are back for their third album of experimental, foreboding synth-pop. United Crushers is the name of their new record, and it’s the followup to 2013’s Shulamith. The group once again teamed up with producer Ryan Olson, and together they wrote the record at their home base of Minneapolis at the tail-end of two years of touring before going to Sonic Ranch Studios in El Paso, TX to record it. The record’s lead single, “Lime Habit,” retains the band’s sense of weightless and blows the dust off a lot of what they were doing before. It comes attached to a music video directed by The Sunset People.

Watch David Bowie’s “Blackstar” Short Film Trailer



David Bowie will release the first single for his new album Blackstar (stylized ★) on Thursday (11/19) accompanied by a short film shot by Johan Renck, the director of The Last Panthers TV series that uses the track for its title credits sequence. The “★” video will premiere globally at 3:50PM EST on Palladia. Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema will also be holding screenings for the short film that day — details here. For now, you can watch a new 30-second preview of the track and video.

Watch The Trailer For Damon Albarn’s wonder.land Musical



Damon Albarn wrote the music for wonder.land, a 21st century, Digital Age musical update of Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice In Wonderland. Moira Buffini wrote the script and lyrics and the National Theatre’s Rufus Norris is directing, and the show debuted in Manchester over the summer. We’ve seen one trailer already, and now there’s another, featuring footage filmed during the Manchester run.

James Ferraro - “Thrash & Escalate” (Official Video)



Experimental producer and vaporwave progenitor James Ferraro has a new album, the Los Angeles-inspired SKID ROW, coming out tomorrow, and today he’s shared a new video for “Thrash & Escalate.” Directed by Elsa Henderson and Ferraro himself, the clip combines aerial footage of darkened highways with white silhouettes of angels superimposed onto images of factories and smog, and the song itself sounds like a hazy collage of urban detritus.

Popcaan - “Dem Wah Fi Know” (Official Video)



Popcaan got a big bump for his brand with his feature on Jamie xx’s “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times),” but the Jamaican dancehall artist’s star has been ascendant for a while. His latest single, “Dem Wah Fi Know,” comes attached to a video that highlights his heritage by following around Popcaan and his friends through his hometown of Portmore and observing what’s changed for them.
Here’s director Focus Creeps on the video:
I had always been really moved by Popcaan as a sincere and uplifting songwriter. When I began thinking of ideas for this track, which is more paranoid in a street sense, I started thinking about how when you make an effort to do what’s good—to take risks, like Popcaan did—there’s always the dark stuff that you have to leave behind. The duppy mythology seemed like a perfect metaphor for the kind of confidence it takes for a Jamaican artist to rise up against the adversity, haters, and corruption that will always be an obstacle for those who put their faith and energy into something positive. This song is about keeping one eye on the look out towards that dark stuff you conquered but can always rise up to haunt you.
Watch it below via The Fader.

Future - “Colossal” (Official Video)



Future seems to be on a mission to make a video for every song on his amazing recent album DS2. Not long after his clips for “The Percocet & Stripper Joint” and “Slick Talk,” he’s got a new one for the florid, piano-led “Colossal.” This one is shot guerrilla-style, mostly on tour, and it’s got a lot of footage of Future onstage, driving a Phantom, and boarding a private jet. Quick celebrity cameos abound: Drake, Diddy, DJ Khaled, Chief Keef. Rick Nyce directs.

Haybaby - “Doored” (Official Video)



We named Haybaby a Band To Watch back in August, and recently included them on our list of the 50 Best New Bands Of 2015. The Brooklyn-based trio makes acerbic, heartfelt rock, and “Doored” is one of the most aggressive songs on their new album Sleepy Kids. The song’s accompanying video channels that aggression nicely; a woman on crutches assaults oblivious individuals who won’t get out of her way on the streets of Brooklyn. Watching this makes me anxious because I fucking hate winter in New York… and it’s coming. Check out the clip below by way of Brooklyn Vegan.

White Reaper - “Make Me Wanna Die” (Official Video)



The Louisville four-piece White Reaper released their latest album, White Reaper Does It Again, this past summer, and since then we’ve been treated to several videos from the band. The clip for “Last 4th Of July” was action packed, and this new Matt Fulks-directed video for “Make Me Wanna Die” (which The Needle Drop premiered today) is similarly antagonistic and goofy. Watch below as the Grim Reaper wreaks havoc on a suburban town and eventually gets arrested.

11/12/2015

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - “Necessary Evil” (Official Video)



The adventurous Portland/New Zealand indie-pop scamps Unknown Mortal Orchestra tried out a sort of itchy white-funk sound on Multi-Love, the new album they released earlier this year, and its songs have some serious legs. They’ve also been making the best music videos of their career. Their new clip for “Necessary Evil” is a psychedelic animated affair, and those aren’t always great. But this one has a big central idea. It shows us a male and female character coming together and breaking apart in all sorts of body-melting ways, and it works as an extended metaphor for romantic distance, for the way we can never really know another person. Sean Solomon directs.

Ty Dolla $ign - “Violent” (Official Video)



Tomorrow, Ty Dolla $ign releases his long-awaited Free TC album. I’ve heard it, and it’s very good. But before that, as Miss Info points out, he’s just released a kinetic, low-tech new video for “Violent,” one of the songs from the Airplane Mode mixtape that he released a couple of weeks ago. Gabe Shaddow directed the video, which mostly mixes murky live-performance video with totally unnecessary clips from many of the police shootings that have been in the news lately. But the live footage is cool, because it’s got all these images of Ty$ singing in front of huge and very excitable crowds. Where are these huge circle pits happening? Is that just what Wiz Khalifa shows look like these days?

Bing & Ruth - “Broad Channel” (Official Video)



David Moore’s minimalist classical ensemble Bing & Ruth are reissuing their 2010 debut City Lake this week, and to go along with the remastered LP, they’ve been releasing new visuals for its tracks. While the video for “Rails” was an impressionistic portrait of train travel, the clip for album opener “Broad Channel” has an actual narrative, albeit an allegorical, somewhat inscrutable one. Set to the song’s meditative stream of piano, clarinet, warm swells of cello, and wordless vocal sighs, an old man traverses various scenic landscapes, carting along a wheelbarrow and a mysterious briefcase. Director Alex Priestley explains:
Inspired by the majestic spaciousness of Bing & Ruth’s instrumentation, along with the epic scope of their musical landscapes, I sought to translate these abstract forms into powerful visuals through the use of landscape, journey and a hint of the supernatural.
The repeated piano motif, so consistent and unwavering, seemed to suggest a journey, whilst the eerie, melancholic synths had an otherworldly quality that I tried to capture by stripping my landscapes of human civilization. Only ancient relics — a ruined abbey, a disused viaduct, a prehistoric burial chamber — would remain, as though this old man on his mysterious quest travelled through some parallel world; earth, yet not earth. The addition of a surreal element seemed to suit this otherworldly atmosphere, where trapped souls can be extracted with magical devices, and swaying statues can come to life with the soul of the universe.
Through experimenting with narrative and subject, I wanted to challenge the assumption that ambient music is always best accompanied by abstract visuals.

Missy Elliott - “WTF (Where They From)” (Feat. Pharrell Williams) Video



It’s now been more than 10 years since Missy Elliott, the great late-’90s/early-’00s rap futurist, released her last album, and a whole generation has been deprived of the amazing stop-the-world feeling that comes when Missy drops a new video. Well, no longer. Missy teased “WTF (Where They From),” a new collaboration with fellow Virginian iconoclast Pharrell Williams, on Monday Night Football last month. And now we get to hear the song and, more importantly, see the incredible video. The track, with its propulsive beat and nonsensical fly talk, is vintage Missy, and the video is even more vintage Missy. It’s one long surrealist dance attack, with Missy dressing like a disco ball and hosting a dance party in what looks like a cryogenic freezing chamber. We also get to see dancing marionette puppet version of both Missy and Pharrell. It’s so awesome. Missy co-directed the video with her old collaborator Dave Meyers.

Watch A Scene From The Blur Movie New World Towers



Blur’s hybrid documentary-concert film New World Towers will screen for the first time next month in the UK. We’ve already seen the official trailer, and today the band has shared another clip from the movie. In this one, Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon extol the magic of their live performances, of which two will be featured in the film.

Official Trailer


Plaitum - “LMHY” (Official Video)



Plaitum is the charmingly misspelled, SEO-friendly name of this new London group, and noisy goth-pop is their game. The duo — consisting of Matt Canham and Abi Dersiley — are gearing up to release their self-titled debut EP next month, and “LMHY” is their muscular, back-bending lead single. It’s equal parts post-Lorde moody swelling and drilling, industrial smack. Their debut effort was produced by the masterful Paul Epworth, and will be released on his own label, Wolf Tone, so the two of them come with some established pedigree in tow. The video for “LMHY,” which was directed by Julian House, is all shimmery lens flares and sun-spotted shadows.

Long Beard - “Turkeys” (Official Video)



Long Beard’s Sleepwalker is a subtly devastating debut because it’s not easily classified as “sad music.” Leslie Bear’s voice is certifiably breathy, weaving itself in and out of distinct layers of atmospheric instrumentation, and Sleepwalker’s appeal lies in the fact that it could be background music, or it could soundtrack the moments after a mental breakdown. It’s a relief, then, that Long Beard’s video for “Turkeys” is a lighthearted, fun interpretation of the stirring single. Watch a ghostly Bear chase her bandmates around below by way of Brooklyn Vegan.

11/11/2015

Marlon Williams - “Hello Miss Lonesome” Video (NSFW)



Alt-country seems to be going through something of a renaissance, and New Zealand’s Marlon Williams fits right in among the pack. Though the singer doesn’t come from the heartland, he still has enough twang and blues to pull it all off. His video for “Hello Miss Lonesome,” a track off his forthcoming debut solo album, features a vicious, elaborately choreographed fight between Williams and an assailant. As he gets alternatively punched around and wooed, the duo travels through an empty building until he’s stripped down bare. Check out the NSFW clip via The Fader below.

Beach Slang - “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas” (Official Video)



Every once in awhile, a video comes along that makes me feel like I’m not living my life to its fullest potential. Maybe instead of hanging out in New York and going to shows and paying my rent and begging my super to fix the toilet, I should be galavanting around the USA. I could tour with a band! I could work on a farm! I could fuck off back to California and learn how to surf and work at a head shop! Of course, I’m not going to do any of these things because I’m happy where I’m at, but Beach Slang’s video for “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas” (off of their latest album The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us) makes me feel young/wild/free and detached from any responsibilities. Watch below via Pitchfork.

NZCA Lines - “Persephone Dreams” (Official Video)



NZCA Lines — the project of London-based Michael Lovett — announced his sophomore record, Infinite Summer, last month with the debut of “Persephone Dreams.” Today, he’s shared a super weird video for that song. It starts off as your typical drunken courtship at an empty bar — boy annoys girl, they end up dancing and heading home together — but things take a turn once they start going at it. She has, like, a black hole in her chest? And she consumes him?? It’s really weird! I did not expect that going in!! More evidence that you should never hook up with anyone ever. The video was directed and conceived by Alina Landry Rancier.

Young Thug - “Thief In The Night” (Feat. Trouble) Video



Young Thug released his excellent new mixtape Slime Season 2 on Halloween, and now he’s shared visuals for the Trouble-featuring track “Thief In The Night.” Directed by Be El Be, as usual, the clip bookends a fairly standard (albeit dependably trippy) strip club video with the narrative of two women drugging and robbing some dude that picks them up at a gas station.

Watch Michael Stipe Play A Surprise Solo Set, Cover The Doors



There are lots of good reasons to go see Patti Smith play a New York show if you get a chance, but here’s an extra one: There’s a pretty high probability that Michael Stipe will play a surprise solo set at the show. Last year, Stipe played his first-ever solo set, which included a Perfume Genius cover, when he served as the surprise opener for a Patti Smith show at Webster Hall. And last night, as Pitchfork reports, Stipe did it again, serving as Smith’s surprise opener at the Beacon Theatre. He did an acoustic all-covers set with a tiny backing band. According to Pitchfork, Stipe’s set included covers of Boy George’s “The Crying Game” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Bethlehem Steel - “87s” (Official Video)



Bethlehem Steel — the very good Brooklyn band fronted by Becca Ryskalczyk — just released their newest EP, Docking, last week, and today they’ve shared a video for searing lead single “87s.” In it, the band and some friends play the childhood game ninja in softly lit black-and-white. Gameplay involves a lot of poses and sharp movements, which makes the video particularly eye-catching, and the dark palette complements the song’s mood. For those of you familiar with the game — it could just be a regional thing? Always hard to tell — it’s a fun look at something you probably haven’t played since the schoolyard. For those that haven’t, see if you can parse the rules below.

Seth Bogart - "Eating Makeup (featuring Kathleen Hanna)" Official Video



Seth Bogart (of Hunx And His Punx) will release a new album next year by way of the storied So Cal garage rock label Burger Records. The album’s first single, “Eating Makeup,” is a smarmy, in-your-face gritty pop song featuring vocals by Kathleen Hanna. The song’s new Jennifer Juniper Stratford-directed video evokes Pee Wee’s Playhouse and some of John Waters’ tamer films.

Tindersticks - “Hey Lucinda” (Feat. Lhasa De Sela) Video



We Are Dreamers!” was a collaboration with Savages’ Jehnny Beth, and Tindersticks’ second single from The Waiting Room is a duet too. The chamber-pop slow-burn “Hey Lucinda” matches Stuart Staples’ mannered baritone with Lhasa De Sela’s weary, high-pitched intonations. Their vocals are cast against an array of rock, folk, and classical instruments that come and go at surprising, rewarding intervals. As with “We Are Dreamers!” and every other song on the album, “Hey Lucinda” arrives with a short film, this one by Rosie Pedlow and Joe King. The directors explained their creative process to Indie Wire:
When we first heard “Lucinda,” we were struck by the way the instruments were used to help tell the story. The glockenspiel at the start reminded us of those wind-up musical Ballerina boxes that grind to a halt; the lurching rhythms of the backwards strings and steel drums made us feel a bit drunk. We decided to use camera movement to echo the toing and froing of the duet, filming from opposite ends of the street in a series of mini tracking shots. Lhasa’s end would be the sleepy chalets; Stuart’s would be amusements. We used a camera slider to repeat the same shot allowing us to layer and cross-fade real time, slow motion and timelapse seamlessly. We wanted to convey not only something about the experiential nature of time but also something about memory and how it fades. We ramped each shot up and down and brought it to a halt just like a ballerina box and used time-lapse to inject a bit of “drunkenness” into the image.

11/10/2015

The Tallest Man On Earth - “Darkness Of The Dream” (Official Video)



Earlier this year, Kristian Matsson, the Swedish folk singer who records as the Tallest Man On Earth, released the gorgeously layered new album Dark Bird Is Home. Today, he’s shared a video for the lushly propulsive album track “Darkness Of The Dream.” In it, we see Matsson hitting a dance studio with a pair of modern dancers and trying out some impressively tricky choreography. (This is the point where I’m obligated to point out that if Matsson were really the tallest man on earth, they might not have been able to lift him so easily.) We also see him roaming across a barren, rocky landscape with a very cute small dog in tow. Jakob Wallin directed the video.

Dornik - “Strong” (Official Video)



UK R&B singer and producer Dornik has shared a video for the funky, hyperactive “Strong,” a cut off his self-titled debut album from earlier this year. Only because it was so prominent so recently, the pastel colors here are definitely reminiscent of “Hotline Bling” by way of James Turrell, but really it just looks like any music video that features people dancing against a backdrop. At least some of this dancing is actually good! There’s also a lot of fluidity to this one, with flashing lights and shifting geometric shapes. It was directed by Charlie Rotberg.

Daughter - “Numbers” (Official Video)



The wonderfully sad British pop group Daughter have released a new video for their track “Numbers,” which involves a mysterious red-coated woman wandering around the streets of an urban city and doing things like setting a homeless person on fire and watching a man choking to death at a restaurant. Elena Tonra’s masterfully somber lyrics and vocals dress the track in melancholy colors typical of Daughter: a wistful venture into dark, moody dream-pop. “Numbers” is the second track to be released from the band’s forthcoming sophomore LP, following lead single “Doing The Right Thing.”

John Malkovich – “Cryolife 7:14 A.M.” (Feat. Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon)


Sometimes, it seems like everything John Malkovitch has done in the decade and a half since Being John Malkovitch is one long extended wheel-spin, because what the fuck can you possibly do after that? Case in point: Malkovitch’s new project Like A Puppet Show, on which Malkovitch reads Plato over music from his collaborator Eric Alexandrakis, and then various all-star musicians remix it. We’ve already heard Rik Ocasek’s random-ass contribution, and now, thanks to Rolling Stone, we get to hear what happens when Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon get ahold of one of those tracks. The end result is called “Cryolife 7:14 A.M.,” and it really does sound like Malkovitch reading Plato while Ono and Lennon do unrelated things. It sounds like trash! Check it out below!

11/09/2015

ZHU x Skrillex x THEY. - “Working For It” (Official Video)



In recent years, we’ve heard the enigmatic electronic producer Steven Zhu, who records as ZHU, team up with AlunaGeorge on “Automatic” and with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Trombone Shorty on “Hold Up, Wait A Minute.” He’s now joined forces with Skrillex and with the L.A. R&B duo THEY. for the slinky new track “Working For It.” And the track also has a noirish black-and-white animated video, which tells a cryptic story about an elite assassin and which includes a car-and-helicopter chase scene.

Sia - “Alive” (Official Video)



Sia’s new single “Alive” is a barnstorming operatic howler that was originally intended for Adele’s forthcoming album 25. (Sia co-wrote it with Adele and Tobias Jesso Jr.) Instead, it’s leading off This Is Acting, Sia’s forthcoming LP of songs written for other people. And like the clips on her last album 1,000 Forms Of Fear, the new video for “Alive” features a bewigged stand-in for Sia doing something very impressive. This time around, it’s a very small child, in a two-toned Sia wig, doing a fast and sharp and impressive display of martial arts. She’s by herself in a huge room, so she’s not actually kicking anyone’s asses, but you just know she could. It’s a vivid and memorable clip.

Coldplay - “Adventure Of A Lifetime”



London’s investigative-journalist Coldplay heads were right: Coldplay’s new album A Head Full Of Dreams is coming out at the top of next month. This time around, the album comes absolutely stuffed with guests: Beyoncé, Noel Gallagher, Swedish rising pop star Tove Lo, gospel howler/”Gimme Shelter” backup singer Merry Clayton. It looks like Brian Eno had no hand in the proceedings; instead, Coldplay worked with the glossy Norwegian pop-production team Stargate, as well as longtime collaborator Rik Simpson. They recorded the album in Malibu, L.A., and London.

Frontman Chris Martin has been talking about this album as maybe their last one. In an interview with Zane Lowe last year, he said that the new LP would be “the completion of something” and elaborated: “I have to think of it as the final thing we’re doing. Otherwise we wouldn’t put everything into it.” So we might not have Coldplay to kick around too much longer anymore.

The album’s first single is certainly a bright, sparkly pop tune, even by this band’s standards. We’ve already heard a bit of “Adventure Of A Lifetime,” but the whole thing is online now. And it’s a Coldplay take on disco-funk, with an Afro-pop guitar figure and some strutting rhythm-section work along with all the usual vague uplift. Below, check out the new song, the album’s tracklist, and watch the band doing a comedy bit for BBC Radio 1 in which they try to make hits out of the most boring lyrics possible.

Deap Vally - “Royal Jelly” (Official Video)



LA duo Deap Vally’s 2013 debut Sistrionix was full of crunchy, bluesy garage rock, and they’re following that up next year with another full-length, this one produced by the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Nick Zinner. The group has got the ball rolling with “Royal Jelly,” an attitude-filled track that’s accompanied by a video starring the two members, Mick Jagger’s daughter Georgia May, and a cameo from Zinner as a bartender. Check it out via DIY.

Arca - “Vanity” (Official Video)



Arca, the Venezuelan producer and Björk/Kanye West/FKA twigs collaborator, has a new album called Mutant coming out later this month. Over the weekend, he shared a video for “Vanity,” a new track that sounds like a trap-rave banger that’s been drowned in honey and tar. Like his recent “EN” clip, the video is a murky, mysterious affair that focuses on Arca himself. It mixes blurry city-at-night imagery with shots of Arca, dressed and posed seductively, in a bed and a swimming pool. Arca co-directed the video with the photographer Daniel Sannwald, his boyfriend, and it’s a whole lot more intimate than anything most artists will ever give us. Check it out below.

DJDS - “Stand Up And Speak” (Official Video)



DJDS, the L.A. dance-producer duo of Jerome LOL and Samo Sound Boy, used to go by the name DJ Dodger Stadium, and they gave us the great album Friend Of Mine last year. In August, they unveiled their name change with a memorable, oddly beautiful video for “You Don’t Have To Be Alone.” And with the new album Stand Up And Speak coming early next year, they’ve made another one for the urgent title track, bringing some of the same apocalyptic-impressionism vibes as their last video. This one shows us little kids, in gas masks and hazmat suits, boogie-boarding on a beach outside what looks like a chemical plant. It’s beautifully shot, but it’s also a loaded and sobering vision. Daniel Pappas and Nick Walker, the group’s regular collaborators, once again direct.

The 1975 - “Love Me” (Official Video)



The 1975 – “Love Me” (Dir. Diane Martel)

Shout out to any 2015 boy band willing to present itself like 1985 Duran Duran.

Ellie Herring - “Why’d You”



Unlike the more prominent Ellie that also released new music this week, Herring sounds like she knows what makes a big pop song, which is why it’s so fun to see her slyly invert the formula at every turn. Herring’s music falls definitively under the electronic umbrella, but she’s engaging and personality-filled in a way that this type of music often isn’t. “Why’d You,” the Kentucky producer’s dizzying new single, is an art-rave freakout of triumphant proportion, built on a beat that sounds like a heart palpitation. Little cackles fly off in the background, as if the track itself is sizing up the listener to see if they can handle the rush. “Why’d You” breaks down and builds itself back up again, proudly displaying the mechanisms that make it tick, like a pop song with all the air sucked out of it.

Eric Church - “Mr. Misunderstood” (Official Video)



A few days ago, “greatest working rock star” Eric Church sent his new album out as a surprise to members of his fan club, and it made its way online via Apple Music a little while later. The title track and purported lead single “Mr. Misunderstood” also got a video to go along with it, featuring Church and his band playing in an empty school house intercut with footage of a kid learning how to play guitar. This is the track on the record where Church shouts out Elvis Costello and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and calls Jeff Tweedy “one bad mother.”

Oscar - “Breaking My Phone” (Official Video)



The artwork for Oscar’s indie-pop bop “Breaking My Phone” features a shattered iPhone, but the singer went the retro-futuristic route in the video for the track, choosing to show exclusively flip phones as he walks through an East London street. Obviously this was shot before it came out, but look at Adele’s flip phone impact, stretching back to before it was even released. Check out the video below.

The Spook School - “I Want To Kiss You” (Official Video)



It’s been a particularly great year for queer musicians — PWR BTTM, Adult Mom, and G.L.O.S.S. chiefly among them, though they’re certainly not the only ones — and Scottish four-piece the Spook School are throwing their hats into the ring with Try To Be Hopeful, the follow-up to their very good and very underrated 2013 debut Dress Up. The record’s already been released on their side of the pond, but it’s coming stateside at the end of the month, and they’re sharing a endearingly goofy video for “I Want To Kiss You” to hype it up. Unlike the explicitly political and passionate first two singles from the album — “Burn Masculinity” and “Binary” — “I Wanna Kiss You” is an infatuation anthem, just as passionate as the band always is, but directing that energy at another person. There’s still some hints at the fluidity that make them such a welcome presence in the scene (“I want to hear you say you’ve never done this before with someone like me,” “But if your god is valid, why isn’t mine?”), but it takes a backseat to all the breathlessness, anticipation, and desire that comes with a crush.

Bayonne - “Spectrolite” (Official Video)



Roger Sellers adopted the name Bayonne after press in his hometown of Austin kept referring to him as a DJ. Bayonne is not a DJ — he’s a multi-instrumentalist with a soft, delicate sound like Youth Lagoon or Washed Out. Today, we premiere the music video for Bayonne’s song “Spectrolite” from his upcoming Mom+Pop debut. According to Sellers, the song is about a stone that his girlfriend at the time brought him back from Australia. The travel theme is made evident in the music video; directed by Lauren Gregory, it’s a tale of traveling in a stop-motion style with illustrations that come to life, including images of Alvin And The Chipmunks on the airplane screen (timely!) and waking up to a flight attendant hovering over you.

Chromatics - “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” (Cyndi Lauper Cover)



We’ve been waiting a long time for Chromatics to give us Dear Tommy, their latest much-anticipated klonopin-disco odyssey, and it’s still set to arrive sometime in the indistinct and hopefully-near future. But the group has steadily been cranking out entrancing new songs: “Just Like You,” “I Can Never Be Myself When You’re Around,” “In Films,” “Shadow.” And over the summer, in a MANGO commercial, we heard a bit of the group’s cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” the pop classic that Cyndi Lauper made famous in 1983. As it turns out, the group are planning to release a massive digital single with seven different versions of that song, and it’s coming out tomorrow. They’ve made videos for two of those versions: “Girls Just Wanna Have Some,” which turns the original song into a dazed and icy twinkle, and “Girls Just Wanna Have Dub,” which removes all the drums from that dazed and icy twinkle and turns it into even more of a dreamy fantasia. Both versions have videos of Chromatics singer Ruth Radelet drifting through a seaside carnival. They are lovely, even if neither one boasts a wrestler cameo.

Mind Enterprises - “Chapita” (Official Video)



Mind Enterprises is the one-man project of Andrea Tirone, who dabbles in funky rhythms and groovy pulses in his latest track, “Chapita.” The Italian musician’s vein of upbeat electro is stylized in the video, an aesthetically-pleasing venture into funhouse mirrors and bright primary colors. Directed by the Fashtons (the husband and wife team that is artist Ben Ashton and photographer/director Fiona Garden), the whole clip looks like a performance art piece in tangent with the song, as quirky and bubbly as the music itself.

Kylesa - “Lost And Confused” (Official Video)



Kylesa released their latest onslaught, Exhausting Fire, last month, and today the Savannah crew have shared a video for early single “Lost And Confused.” The band themselves are featured in brief, gloomily-lit interstitials, but the main thrust here is the complicated relationship between a destructive and hardcore Bonnie & Clyde pairing, played by Michael Ferrera and Lydia Schneider. The two of them beat someone up in a parking lot, rob a pizza place, and have a ton of sex. That last one comes back to bite them, though, and the female half of the relationship finds out she’s pregnant. The whole story is presented in fractured narrative form, so take a few views to process it all below.

Active Child - “Midnight Swim” & “Darling” (Official Video)



After a short break following the release of his sophomore album, Mercy, earlier this year, Active Child is back with videos for “Midnight Swim” and “Darling,” two tracks from the LP. Both of them star Aliana Lohan — yes, of that Lohan clan — and were captured in a single shot by directing crew TS&R, mostly by the beach. Here’s Active Child’s Pat Grossi on the intent behind the pair of videos:
I knew I wanted something simple and pure to fit the placid tone of ‘Darling.’ And once we started shooting the single take of Ali at sunset I knew it was going to be unlike any other video I’ve done or seen really. I love the way it stops time.
And here are the directors:
While it may it be possible to fall in love with a portrait, moving and still, the heartbreak is that we are always kept at a distance from this romance. The intimacy and closeness we are able to experience is always untouchable. In front of the glass door of a picture frame or the canvas of a painting, we are only allowed to look. We cannot smell the sea, or feel the wind but still we are there. When asked to spend 4½ mins lost in a stare, the connection to our subject and backdrop grows. The mystery and curiosity begs us to know more and wait for change, if any at all.
You can only watch both videos back to back on Active Child’s website — go here to do so.